...that don't taste great together.

When I went to Japan recently, I encountered a fairly fancy gelato store that served some unusual flavor combinations. Even though it was the dead of winter, I had to try their "sweet cream and balasamic vinegar" creation. That's right: sweet cream gelato, with balsamic vinegar on top.

No, that's not chocolate sauce on top. Surprisingly, the offsetting effects of the tangy vinegar and the soothing gelato went very well together. That's an example of an idea that sounds horrible, but wasn't bad in practice.

The following, on the other hand, is probably an idea that initially sounded great, but is actually a horrid, horrid example of marketing gone wrong (though marketing hardly ever goes right).

Click me for sacrilege.

Sure, combining Transformers with Star Wars might sound like a good idea, if you're seven years old. But, to quote Adam Sandler, who were the ad wizards that came up with that one? Hey George, ease up on that rubber stamp.

There's a saying that goes something like: businesses shouldn't be judged by the mistakes they make, but how they address those mistakes. Save for my long dead NES (which probably passed after I blew into it one too many times), every console and handheld I've ever owned has never had a single mechanical flaw, and I've owned the majority of consoles that have been released since the 8-bit era, and even some before. No problems with my PS2 laser; no dead pixels on my PSPs or DSen; no issues with my Super Nintendo. While I know of friends and relatives that haven't been so lucky, I've been able to maintain a perfect record of sorts.

Perfect, that is, until Microsoft came into the picture. I purchased an Xbox in 2003 (previously, my roomate had one at launch) and an Xbox 360 last November. The original Xbox started having problems with its Thompson DVD drive after about a month of ownership. After about two years, the problem got so bad that the console would no longer recognize any games I fed it. Since I was way out of the 90-day warranty, I thought that I was going to have to pony up for a brand new Xbox. I called customer support on a whim, and after getting bumped up to someone's manager, Microsoft essentially offered to replace my drive for $40, including shipping. Their method of shipping was very effecient -- there was a prepaid box at my doorstep within three days, and I had my Xbox back within two weeks.

Earlier this month, my Xbox 360 bit the bullet. It had been freezing during gameplay for about two weeks prior, and then one day, it gave me the dreaded three red lights of doom. Interestingly enough, it dropped dead the day after the factory warranty had expired. I called Microsoft customer support ready to vent at someone in Bombay, but before I could get my yelling voice warmed up, the person on the other end had completely disarmed me and offered to take care of the problem, all expenses paid. Again, the whole process of shipping my console to Microsoft and getting it back was painless.

And speaking of getting it back...



...it lives! (and writes blogs).

So while I'm somewhat miffed that every Microsoft console I've ever owned (all two of them) has failed at some point in their lifespan, I do appreciate the way that Microsoft has professionally addressed these issues. In an era when customer service is getting increasingly automated and outsourced, it's heartening to find what many perceive as a monolithic and soulless corporation handle dey bidnez so well. But then again, Microsoft probably didn't get to its current position by ignoring its customers...

...or by writing checks -- The Simpsons, anyone?

Ever since I first smooth-talked my way to the Tokyo Game Show in the fall of 2000 at GameSpot, I've been making it a habit to visit Japan at least once a year. I've always had a fascination with nearly every aspect of the country -- cars, gadgets, anime, history, culture, etc -- and I'm very fortunate that I'm able to indulge myself regularly.

Of course, one of the biggest draws that cities like Tokyo and Osaka have for me are their electronics and gaming "districts" like Akihabara and Den Den Town, respectively. In addition to finding Japanese games and hardware that aren't out in the states yet, I like browsing games that will likely never see the light of day on our shores.

These games include complex train simulators, social simulations, horse racing sims, and a wide variety of off-the-cuff fighting games. Many of these games are perfectly normal by mainstream, Western game-standards. Others, however...well, I'll just let this picture I snapped last year do the talking:



I expect a review of this post haste, Greg.

Amer Ajami | I'm Cool Too

Hey look, somebody's back from the dead. It was this weekend's top slot story that spurred me to fire up the 'ol GameSpot blog machine, which I've been ignoring since late 2004, and post a small update about the hidden jewels in my collection. That, and the insistent nagging of one Will Perkins, a samurai without a daimyo from north of the border, of sorts (thanks for the snazzy image). As it is, my game collection sits in a black laquer shelf unit, impressing no one except the thin layer of dust that they've collected.

In the circles that we travel, I think our game collections speak volumes about us. My collection is largely made up of fairly mainstream games from the current and and upcoming generation of console, handheld, and PC platforms. The majority is made up of Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube, and PC games. There are also a fair number of Game Boy Advance, DS, and Dreamcast games. Unfortunately, even though I've been playing games for well over two decades, I never kept any of my old NES and SNES games, and most of my PlayStation games. As I was a broke student back then, the only way for me to graduate from one gaming generation to the next, was to trade in the old one. In retrospect, I deeply regret doing so, but then again, there would have been no way I could have ever afforded to pick up a new console on my own without resorting to such "drastic" measures.

That's just to say that most of my Pick 5 isn't from the golden era of 8- or 16-bit gaming, as they should be. However, and if I do say so myself, these somewhat late-model jewels are still worthy of a little bit of adulation, if not from the circles that I travel in.

5. Diablo II

Diablo II?! You and about 10 million others, jackass. Well, yes, that's true. However, my copy of Diablo II is special because it's signed by the dev team at Blizzard, and it's unopened. Of course, I have another copy that was single-handidly responsible for tripling the thickness of finger funk on my mouse and cost me hours of sleep back during the turn of the century, but I keep the signed one as a memento of sorts.

4. Elektroplankton

Nothing screams elitist importer prick louder than this DS non-game. Elektroplankton is basically a collection of nine or so extremely simple mini-games about making music by tapping your stylus on the screen repetitvely. While I'm all for supporting "the movement" -- you know, Ico, Katamari, etc -- the real reason I bought Elektroplankton was because of the relative lack of quality DS games during the first half of 2005. I was curious about this game, but I also honestly didn't believe it was going come out in the US at all, being as obscure as it was.

3. Gran Turismo Prologue

As a huge fan of racing games, I'm especially proud of this one. Sony and Polyphony Digital have always released, or at least showed off, special edition and interim versions of their venerable Gran Turismo games. At this past E3, Sony's keynote included footage of Gran Turismo HD, a version of Gran Turismo 4 running in 1080p. More recently, some members of the press got to participate in a closed run of Gran Turismo Online, which will likely never see the light of day as a retail product.

After the release of Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec, Polyphony Digital released a series of weird expansion-type non-expansions under the "Concept" series -- Concept Geneva, Concept Seoul, and Concept Tokyo, to be precise. Those never came out in the US, and neither did Prologue.

Prologue was billed as an appetizer to Gran Turismo 4, but it feels more like Gran Turismo 3 with some of GT4's cars. The point is, it's sort of rare stateside. As a bonus, I also managed to come by the alternate DVD case cover which has a beautiful render of a McLaren F1 car on the back, instead of the original cover's road signs.

2. 20th Anniversary Famicom Mini

Last year, the Famicom celebrated its 20th anniversary. As part of this celebration, Nintendo of Japan offered a box set of ten Game Boy Advance games that were ports of NES classics. Specfically, the set included Japanese versions of Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, Ice Climbers, Excitebike, The Legend of Zelda, Pac-Man, Xevious, Mappy, Bomber Man, and Star Soldier.

This set was never offered for sale in Japan, though the games, individually, were. Instead, Japanese gamers who had collected a certain number of points through purchases of first-party Nintendo products were able to trade in these points for this set. You can look, but don't touch. And try not to get any drool on it.

Special thanks to a certain ex-GameSpot Japanese correspondant for obliging me.

1. Herzog Zwei
Since I find myself involved with RTS games, it's only fitting that the father of that genre would get my number one slot. Herzog was a Genesis game that came out before Dune II, the Westwood-developed PC game that almost universally gets credit for creating the RTS genre. It's actually not a very good game -- there's something to be said for leaving the classics rose-tintified in your memory, if you know what I'm saying. But it is the daddy, and it is rare, so there you go.

I was actually going to give the nod to Radiant Silvergun for the Saturn, but I'm one of those wannabes who resorted to buying it recently off of eBay for a stupid sum of money, rather than importing it when it first came out. So it almost feels like it shouldn't count, in my case anyway.

See you in 2008!

While it's not in my best interest to dog on EA Trax, I do admit that, with the release of Burnout 3, I've finally begun to understand some of the criticism that it has received from the likes of Ryan and Jeff, as well as countless of other forum posters. I was never bothered by the inclusion of EA Trax on games like Madden. In fact, many of the lesser known bands that are included on some of EA's games receive much needed and often well-deserved exposure through their participation of the EA Trax program. I didn't even mind its inclusion in SSX 3 last year, despite the great soundtracks that SSX and Tricky had.

I never played the original Burnout, but I was a huge fan of Burnout 2. In particular, I loved the audio. The soundtrack in that game was heavily tied to its gameplay, in that each track was unique to one course in the game, all the tracks were very well produced, and most importantly of all, as you used boost in that game, the music would increase in tempo and more instruments would be played. That was a subtle but important aspect of the game. It added that much more intensity to the races. After all the sparks and streaks and wrecks and shattered glass and the sheer sense of speed that was thrown at you in that game, that music would kick in and it was all you could do to not to wipe out and wreck into a million pieces. When I heard that Burnout 3 would include EA Trax, I knew that the great execution of the audio in Burnout 2 would not be repeated for the third entry in the series.

And while Burnout 3 does a superb job of improving upon the visceral characteristics of its predecessor, well, I miss that up-tempo music when I boost. And Hoobastank isn't an acceptable substitute either. And while I still don't believe EA Trax is the soul-sucking evil some would make it out to be, yeah, it's left me wanting.

Thank you Microsoft for custom soundtracks, though. I actually thought I would be pretty smart and buy the Burnout 2 soundtrack and rip it onto my Xbox, but there is no such soundtrack unfortunately. Thankfully, I've got the second greatest driving game soundtrack of all time ripped onto my Xbox: Highway to the Danger Zone set on repeat.

Cars explode. I should be sleeping.