The Daily ‘Shroom – 8/28/07
Before I kick things off, I’m seriously looking at changing the news format here. On the one hand, it might be more organized, but I think that also largely depends on how much content is found for a given subject during the day.
I’m still hesitant to do this, so if you’re reading this, PLEASE respond with your thoughts or suggestions. Even if you just like things the way they are, that is important for me to know! Seriously!
Oh, and um, sorry if some of the news is retreaded from the last update, the Saturday thing has thrown me a little off.
- TransFormers!
Remy does it again, with a new gallery dedicated to Be@rbrick Optimus and Megatron, based on their Movie incarnations.
Once again, eBay is the place to be for first=looks at upcoming product, thanks to thieves in Chinese factories who seek to make a quick buck.
Today’s heists include Universe Swerve, who uses an actual Chevrolet Aveo alternate mode. Why he’s not part of the Movie line is beyond me, but he’s a nice blend of Movie and “oldschool” aesthetics.
The downside? He might just be the most expensive first-market TransFormer ever, as reportedly he’s only available with the purchase of the car he turns into, and only in China. Yikes!
Joining Swerve in the online auction scene is Nike Starscream, a Megatron recolor who transforms into what is presumed to be a really, really fast shoe.
For those wanting to jam out to the orchestral soundtrack to the movie, that will be coming to Best Buy and Amazon on October 9th.
The movie itself is still pulling in money, and has become the 23rd highest grossing movie of all time. Not bad for a bunch of toy robots, huh?
And finally, you’ve gotten ahold of Music Label Soundwave (you lucky bastard, you), but something still doesn’t seem quite… right? Well then, Mr. I-Gotta-Have-It-All, you’re in luck! Reprolabels has released a new set of stickers that makes Soundwave look a little more like his oldschool G1 self.
Plus, there are also stickers for making Wheelie light our darkest hour as Wheelimus Prime!
- I haven’t been following the Capcom updates regarding Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, because after the first couple of character stills, well, it got kind of dull. Not to say the art isn’t good or anything, but it just feels like “ok, we get it, when can we see it in motion?”
Well, nothing yet on that front, but there is something interesting: Balrog’s stage. From the look of it, it seems a bit reinvented, a little updated beyond a mere graphic facelift.
Now I wonder what the other stages will look like.
- Mmm, Chef Sakurai held a tasty update at Smash Bros. DOJO!! last night, as he served up the spiciest curry you will ever lay eyes on.
Hot stuff.
- Wii’s Virtual Console updates today with some beloved titles of old, including Ghouls n’ Ghosts for the Genesis, Breath of Fire II for the SNES, and my choice pick, Super C for the NES.
Ironically, the adherence to keeping the games “as they were” when they were released also applies to the text, meaning that the VC descriptor for Super C pretty much stands in contradiction with the upcoming Contra 4. Why? Check out PMO’s exclusive Konami interview to find out!
- Is Nintendo cheaping out on DS Lite screens?
Seems that there have been allegations of that nature, with some compelling pictures (well, as compelling as something like this can be) to back it up.
What gives? And is there a way to know which screen you’re getting? And, to my personal interest, is this “bad screen” still better than the original DS screen?
- It’s Prime time!
The release of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is finally upon us, and from the looks of things at Game Rankings, it’s not doing too shabby.
GameTrailers has a plethora of videos for the game, from a preview to a review to gameplay, and even a comparison with its predecessor, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, a video which seems to have been removed at an earlier time and added again yesterday.
To top it all off, has Nintendo pulled Metroid Dread out of purgatory? Maybe…
- Wow, it was just the other day when I was voicing my opinion on a forum about video game movies, and how Spy Hunter was one I was most looking forward to, on the premise that there is really very, very little to possibly ruin in the transition from arcade screen to silver screen. And one title I said would be interesting to see make the jump was Joust.
Funny thing, that. It seems almost as though they were listening to me.
Naturally, I see this as a good thing. As long as they keep the birds and basic setup, I figure it’ll be a fun flick, or at worst, just bad in the good way.
- Gabe and Tycho are on the move, as the new trailer for the Penny Arcade game On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness debuted at PAX, along with the news that the game will also be available on XBox Live Arcade.
Which means I am now officially interested.
- South Park has signed on for three more seasons.
All I can say is “sweeeet.”
- Ok, I admit it. Video games can be the cause of violence.
In this case, I just want to smack the idiots responsible.
- For a quick, condensed list of items from the Penny Arcade Expo, Joystiq has a nice one.
–LBD “Nytetrayn”
August 28th, 2007 at 8:31 am
what sort of changes?
I must admit that your mass link posts are hard for me to digest, I’m used to each link in a separate item from my other RSS feeds. To the point where I tend to leave the PMO posts until days later and set aside some time to sit down, read a few days worth and find what’s interesting.
August 28th, 2007 at 10:36 am
See, now I like the mass link posts. Something I would suggest is dividing them up by category. Put the gaming stuff in one post, the Transformers in another, etc. I’m not a fan of everything that you enjoy and I find myself skipping past the things I don’t want to read. It’d be easier to skim if things were separated by topic.
August 28th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
I do want to make things more organized and categorized, but the question is, how?
My biggest issue is that I want to retain the news (Daily ‘Shroom) and fun (Points of Interest) formats; I consider this important, because while the news is interesting now, I also want to try and keep it seperate from PoI stuff, which is supposed to be stuff you can look at today or two years from now and still find interesting.
Of course, now that I think about it, I’ve not been doing well there for TransFormers.
Maybe I can try seperate numbered lists in both. So far, all I’ve got for categorization in either is “InFormers,” a name Scarab came up with for the TF news, “Video Power,” for the video game stuff (and eponymous homage to the old TV show I used to watch all the time), and… well, that’s as far as I get. I imagine the rest could be “other,” though a category name might be nice…
Suggestions are welcome.
As far as mass-link posts, the idea behind PMO was to make it almost like a news or magazine show, acting as an “anchor” to lead in to various stories from throughout the day, with the occassional bit of commentary wherever it fits. I think it keeps it unique from most other sites, and the main thing is for easy browsing, so people can find out more if they want, or just skip to the next item.
–LBD “Nytetrayn”
August 28th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
I think my biggest issue with the mass link posts is that when I’m skimming, it’s harder to distinguish each individual item (my RSS reader removes all CSS in each post so the news items are packed a bit closer together than they are on the blog).
Matt’s category idea would definitely help with that, breaking up the 15-20 items into 2 or 3 lists with a heading or something in between.
August 29th, 2007 at 2:56 am
Personally, I love the shit out of your site the way it is right now. The idea for the place is obviously old as dirt, and it’s arguable that there are other sites that do it better, but they’re far less informal, and it’s loaded with crap links you don’t really give a shit about.
You however can have a Power Rangers, Transformers, Smash Bros, and silly random link, all in one post. No one else caters almost exclusively to my needs like this site.
Technically, the only thing I can think of that I don’t like, is that the actual link doesn’t pop up in the status bar on a hover-over. This can get kind of annoying when I’m trying to figure out if it’s the Smash Bros update I allready read about, or a brand new one, just as an example.