Posted by Nate Patrin at 12:56 PM Apr 17, 2008
On the list of things that aren't as cool as the internet thinks they are -- 300, Dragonforce, anti-gay slurs -- ninjas have to be somewhere near the top. Granted, I'm saying this as a movie geek: samurai have Toshiro Mifune, Shaolin monks have Jet Li, karate masters have Sonny Chiba, and ninjas have... a whole bunch of Golan-Globus garbage starring Sho Kosugi and/or some random dopey American. What you've got left are things like Naruto, that funny-once Real Ultimate Power website and a few webcomics like White Ninja and Dr. McNinja that, while reliably funny, are more goofy than badass. (DISCLAIMER: I don't give a shit about pirates, either. Zombies I can take or leave.) There's only one media where I've really found ninjas to be as awesome as everyone says they are, and that's video games.
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Posted by Kevin Hoffman at 10:00 PM Apr 06, 2008
By Kevin Hoffman
Spin magazine recently reviewed iPod games. While the magazine's timing was right, it made an eggregious omission: Peggle, the device's first five-star game.
I recently upgraded from an iPod mini to an iPod classic. Impressed with the fidelity of the screen, I of course downloaded a bunch of music videos I watched once, then swiftly moved into the more interesting waters of iPod games.
There is not much to recommend here, I'm afraid. Previous to my discovery of Peggle, the only game that got more than a few plays on my iPod was Phase, which is by Harmonix, the maker of the popular Guitar Hero series as well as the new Rock Band. Phase offers a much more limited input--rather than a fullblown plastic guitar, you're crippled with a clickwheel, which you use to cycle between three circles (left, center, right) in time with the beat. But what it lacked in control mechanics it made up for in customization: You create "Phase Playlists" of your favorite music which are converted into levels to play in the game.
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