Note: Not developed by Infinity Ward. Note: still looks rad.

Designer Jennie Maneri did what I've been secretly waiting for someone to do for ages, and made a real-deal Katamari that you can roll around in the real world. Check out the detail! In her own words:

"I've recently become obsessed with the latest installment in Keita Takahashi's brilliant Katamari Damacy series, Beautiful Katamari. I created my own real-fake Katamari from an assortment of dollhouse furnishings, hobby shop accouterments, and toy stores oddities. Additionally, I hand made Pocky and Milky packages using inkjet prints on tiny boxes. The entire replica is made from miniatures down to the hand-felted Katamari at the core, with all the items glued, pinned, and sewn. Approximately 12" high at a 1:12 scale."

Yay!

So with the introduction of the Falcon chipset, the RRoD issues were supposed to be a thing of the past, but....

Anyhow, here's the latest in the ongoing Super Puzzle Shopper game that is buying a 360. Too see if you have a Falcon chipset, check this link (more here); and just so you know, there's more new chipiness on the way, code named Jasper.

Look, just buy one with a second heat sink, and use it till it breaks. You've got three years before the RRoD becomes an out-of-pocket repair cost, so...

So I've been getting progressively more and more foaming-at-the-mouth hooked on (which also means equally increasingly frustrated by my current level of suck at) NBA 2K8 for my 360. Before you start firing off game invites, let me just say that (as mentioned), I'm not good. At all. But did that stop me from getting totally mesmerized by this game? Nooooooo. And how come? Two reasons: I want to beat the pants of the computer more than I want my next meal, and the game so, so incredibly beautiful to watch. As in breathtaking - there's not much difference if you flip back and forth between the game and a NBA HD broadcast in 1080p.

I mean, look at that screenshot. Christ.

I remember popping in NHL 2K into my Dreamcast years ago and thinking "man, these guys have motion capture dialed..." and while obviously the hardware has come a long way since then, the motion capture and facial mapping is utterly, truly both unprecedented and peerless in this release. The movement of the characters is fluid, natural, and most importantly the movements and animations flow together in a way that makes you really squint to find the polygons or jerky movements that remind you this is a sim.

But it is a simulation, and a damn good one at that. The controls are totally intuitive, not overly complex, and you get into the action fast. That's not to say the learning curve isn't steep, but for once, rather than it being a controller learning curve, it's a game learning curve, as in I'm not a baller (soccer is my sport), and so I don't run my team well. The controls will let you work the team, but with the usual barrier of the controls out of the way, the challenge becomes, as it should be, to beat the other team by being a better bball player, not a better gamer. In short, 2K studios tweaked the shooting, passing, play calling and every other aspect of the game to put all the tools you'd need to run your team seamlessly any way you want - all that's left for you to provide is a solid understanding of how to play an unbeatable game of team ball.

(Which I'm still working on - it's been a while since I rode the pine in HS)

There are oodles of other modes to keep you coming back: seasons, a super fun (and hard) slam-dunk challenge mini-game, online play, street ball 1-on-1, 3 point shootouts... you get a LOT for the money. It's like the Orange Box, for hoops. Plus the soundtrack is pretty badass to boot.

Overall, this title has surpassed 2K's NHL series and every other sporting title I own aside from my beloved soccer sims (2K? Wanna pick up another sport?) in terms of play rotation on my rig. It's amazing to watch, and if I ever somehow morph into a sick court-dominating virtuoso, it'll be even more fun to play the better I get. Slick work, 2K - way to keep the goods coming for almost a decade.

Made all the sweeter by the fact that Mike Patton will be doing the voice-acting!

It's been a crazy month when it came to console sales. Microsoft is doing all sorts of crazy dance moves (obviously dancing with the stars match-up with Master Chief helped things along), the Wii is doing its slow-and-steady-means-I'll-still-be-unavailable-for-Xmas bit, and Sony... well, other than the PSP Sony isn't doing much of anything.

It went down like this. Pre-game, the Xbox 360 was first thought surpass, but only temporarily, the Wii for sales. Indeed, in August, the Wii was still champ (with it's little bro the DS right on its heels). However, with the nice boost it got from Master Chief's latest installment, the 360 did pull ahead right on schedule, selling well through the end of September.

Here's where it gets strange: Japan. The Xbox sales have been anemic at best, but despite Halo 3 selling out as previously noted, Nintendo was dethroned by the PSP in the same bump that saw the Xbox jump up a few spots as well. Even more crazy, the introduction of the 360 Elite in Japan saw sellouts in multiple stores, which one could almost take as a sign of the impending apocalypse.

In a similar story, there's more at work regarding the bump in 360 sales than just Halo 3. I'll use myself as a data point here - the achievement system is worse than crack. It was actually the subject of a real live scientific study recently, and it was demonstrated that these meaningless, useless GP points we get for doing tricky stunts in 360 games actually drive sales. I'll totally admit it - I'm more likely to play a cross-platform release on my 360 just to bump up my Gamerscore. It's crazy, but it taps into something deep inside and makes you go crazy trying to nail that one last 5G achievement....

Anyhow, finally, in big-number-news, the gaming industry is on-track to be a $47 billion USD industry by 2009, and since Sony can't get a foot in the door with the PS3, they're gently reminding they have other (better) wares to offer: the PS2. It's pathetic, but one of the biggest current selling points for the PS3 is the awesome PS2 library for it, and since they just eliminated backwards compatibility for some stupid, stupid reason, they're now reminding us that there are four, not three, consoles to buy this holiday season. Yeah, well, it should be three. And since the PS3 don't count, it kinda is...

Well, it's been a week or three now, and the dust has almost settled. I mean, to the tune of half a million people being online playing the damn game every night. So what's the fallout/best of the news that swirled like a neverending cyclone around the whole launch? Well, here were the top stories I came away with.

• Halo on the Nintendo DS? Not bloody likely. Too bad, but not really. It's not how you want to play Halo.
  
• Bungie now owns themselves. Bye bye MS, hello other platform development?
  
• Zero Punctuation takes on the Master Chief. Hit the jump for the embedded video.
  
• Halo 3 launch was the biggest thing ever in one-day entertainment revenue; could push the 360 to the tipping point; made $170 million in one day; will solve world hunger, etc. UPDATE: the Halo 3 launch actually managed to drive Xbox 360 sales above Wii sales for September! More during the sales roundup later on.
  
• Despite historically anemic sales of the 360 in Japan, Halo 3 sells out! In one store.
  
• Not all of the copies of the game, uh, worked.
  
• Halo 3 ain't true HD? Gimmie a break. It's beautiful. HD fanboys need to calm down.
  
• Got all the skulls yet? What are you waiting for? Go ninja!

Ladies and gents: Halolcats.

The Dreamcast is still, despite my 360 Elite's best efforts, my favorite console ever. Among the shining gems in its untouchable library were the 2K sports games, which knocked some much-needed competition into the EA-dominated landscape, and made for some furious 4 player hockey showdowns.

Nowadays, since we're at 2K + 7.5, I keep having to rub my eyes to make sure I'm still playing a game and not watching an HD telecast. Check this craziness out.

Check out this awesome prank that the MIT nerds pulled over on the lesser Harvard nerds. If only all fanboys were so meticulous and clever (sadly, usually they're trolls that can't take a joke - sorry you had to go through that Brian).

So launch day has passed us by, and I have to say, the software is brilliant. I played the first four levels as a 3-person Co-Op with scoring turned on last night, and it's amazing. The following deathmatch was also superb, and the replay feature was totally addictive. I haven't even beaten the thing, and I've already derived way more than $60 of entertainment out of it. Good job, Bungie.

On the business front, Microsoft is a happy monopolizer this week. Not only is Halo 3 software sales potentially keeping their money-leaking gaming division squarely in the black, but their console sales surpassed the PS2 before the game even came out (yay price drop!). Since they're clearly the pillar of the entire US retail economy, Master Chief even did the honors on Wall St. on his big day.

Now, in addition to pushing software sales through the roof, bumping hardware sales and increasing high-fives by 1,456% at MS HQ, the release of Halo 3 is also going to create a mad run on Xbox Live, which by all counts is a smashing success of an online gaming community. But what happens when all bazillion deathmatch-crazed fans flip their switches at once? Well, a whole lot of nothing for a whole lot of people. Oops.

But what's next? Hit the jump for a super-special sneak peak at Halo 4, 5, 6, and beyond...