Read My Driver: San Francisco Review (Please)!

My review of Driver: San Francisco is up at Machinima. The game was a pleasant surprise. Its main gimmick is “Shifting” — being able to hop from body to body. This allows you to experience San Francisco from different perspectives and different cars. The developers did a great job at implementing the gimmick in clever ways. Now here’s the part where I quote myself:

Aside from a story that is sometimes too silly and a difficulty too unforgiving, there’s not a lot to complain about in Driver: San Francisco. There are certainly a lot of things to love. The gorgeous graphics and entertaining gameplay definitely make the game a thrill ride. The strong multiplayer options will make you take the game for a spin well after the story is done. Driver and John Tanner are back, and they’re better than ever!

When I was playing the game for review last week, it was only reviewers and Europeans online. Now that the game is available in America, I’m hoping for a more robust multiplayer crowd…and less Europeans (I’m kidding!). The multiplayer modes in this game are lots of fun. Shifting adds a really cool dynamic.

Anyway, check out the review if you have a chance. I know that a few of you dig games like Burnout and Split/Second. If you’re part of that crowd then this game should be right up your alley. Driver: San Francisco offers exaggerated driving action with a unique gimmick that makes for driving sequences you won’t find in any other game.

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What Are You Playing This Weekend?

I’m not sure what I want to play this weekend. Deus Ex: Human Revolution should definitely be getting more attention from me. My Driver: San Francisco review is done, but I want to play more multiplayer now that real people have the game. Quarrel Deluxe and Civilization: Revolution are still getting daily play on my iPad 2. So many choices!

How about you? What’s on your weekend playlist?

Nike Air Mags (Back to the Future Shoes) Revealed Today?

[Update: 4:39 PDT] The word on the street is that Nike will be unveiling the Air Mag, the awesome sneakers worn by Marty McFly in Back to the Future II. A bunch of sneaker journalists (I love that there are sneaker journalists, btw) received late-night calls from Nike yesterday in order to make arrangements to attend an event today. All signs point to it being for the Nike Air Mag.

What do you think of the kicks? Are they a sweet reminder of when Michael J. Fox was the coolest guy in the world? Or are they ugly? Would you buy them?

[Updated 4:39 PDT with official video below.]

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Indie Game Store Owner Goes Off on Call of Duty Elite

My pal Chett Muzzalupo, owner of independent game store L1 Games, recently posted a great rant that covers Call of Duty Elite, EA Sports Season Pass, digital distribution, and more. He makes some great points that I completely agree with. He also makes some points that are a bit exaggerated. Lastly, he also exhibits great taste by professing his love for Red Dwarf.

Given our recent discussion on the escalating cost(s) of games and our numerous discussions about digital distribution over the years, I wanted to make sure that you saw this video. And to be completely honest, I just like Chett. He’s a cool guy with a great voice.

Kindly watch the video when you get a chance and let me know what you think of Chett’s points.

Do You Still Use Yahoo! Products?

Last night at dinner, my friends and I were talking about Carol Bartz being ousted as Yahoo!’s CEO. A beautiful girl asked, “What does Yahoo! even do anymore?” What a great question! At its best, Yahoo! was known for search, email, chat, and a groundbreaking videogame show. After numerous identity crises, its most recent focus has been content creation and distribution. The thing is, in almost every area Yahoo! competes in, someone is doing it better (in most cases, a lot better).

Yahoo!’s former core competencies have been lapped by Google, AOL, Microsoft, Skype, etc. The company did a marvelous job at stagnating Flickr, formerly my favorite photo service. As a content creator, the company is terribly inconsistent and often pumps out weak products. I’ve gone from using several Yahoo! products on a daily basis to hopping on Yahoo! Messenger every now and then. The only reason I even do that is because a lot of my friends in Asia still prefer it over other chat programs.

How about you guys and gals? To paraphrase one of the company’s most popular slogans, “Do you still Yahoo!” Were you a heavy Yahoo! user in the past? What Yahoo! products do you still use today?

Coffee Talk #395: Your Dream Dinner for Four

If you could have dinner with three people from the history of the world, who would be at your table? They can be game developers, actors, musicians, etc. It’s your dream dinner for four and I’d love to hear your…

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, rain ruining my U.S. Open (tennis) background noise, why my coffee beans are late (again), or dinner/drinks with two excellent people, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

If you could have dinner with three people from the history of the world, who would be at your table? The only condition for this game is that the people you choose have to be real (this is mostly to prevent one of you from choosing He-Man or Bugs Bunny). They can be game developers, actors, musicians, etc. It’s your dream dinner for four and I’d love to hear your picks! Here are mine:

Muhammad Ali: “The Greatest” would headline my dream dinner. I’d choose the Ali that was banned from boxing and speaking out against the war in Vietnam. Ali was already an extraordinary athlete with unmatched speed for a heavyweight boxer, but his stance against the Vietnam War made him so much more. He lost three prime years of his career, but inspired so many people while he was away from boxing. He became more than just an athlete. He became an icon.

John Lennon: My feelings about Lennon are similar to my feelings about Ali. He was already a renowned performance artist and songwriter, but his post-Beatles activism made him so much more. I love that he used his fame to spread positive messages and to get people to think. I also love the continued to write great songs when doubters thought he was washed up. I’d love to have ’70s John Lennon at my dream dinner.

Steve Jobs: My last spot was a tough choice. As I mentioned to you last year, I’d love to have a one-on-one dinner with Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto. For some reason, I’m being a stickler with my dinner-for-four scenario and am disqualifying Miyamoto because he would require a translator (sorry Bill!). The final spot goes to Apple’s Steve Jobs. This would be 2005 Jobs, fresh off his Stanford commencement speech. In addition to getting his thoughts on making products people are passionate about, I’d love to hear about how he felt about getting booted from Apple, elevating Pixar, and returning to make Apple better than ever.

So that’s my dream dinner for four. Now let me know who’s sitting at your table (please)!

Is AOL Killing Great Web Sites (Engadget, TechCrunch)?

Yesterday I received five calls about the situation over at TechCrunch concerning the status of its founder, Michael Arrington. The calls caught me off guard. A couple of people wanted quotes from me and I’m not sure why. Others are longtime friends in the Silicon Valley world that just wanted to talk about it in a totally high-school way. One question that came up in all five calls was, “Do you think that AOL is killing great editorial?”

Let’s take a journey back to March, when Josh Topolsky announced he was leaving Engadget. For a lot of people (not me), Josh was Engadget. He connected with millions of readers. His opinions and articles were respected throughout the consumer electronics industry. Yet AOL had no problem changing Engadget into a site he no longer felt passionate about.

The situation at TechCrunch is murkier, but it ultimately comes down to the same thing. For a lot of people, Michael Arrington is TechCrunch. Like Josh, he has connected with millions of readers over the years. Yet AOL, Arianna Huffington in particular, has no problem with kicking him off the site he founded.

I understand what AOL is thinking. It’s true that the sites and brands it bought are bigger than any one person. It’s true that Engadget continued to be successful without Topolsky and TechCrunch will continue to be successful if Arrington is fired. However, I believe the children are our future that  Engadget isn’t as good without Topolsky and TechCrunch won’t be as good without Arrington. That said, I don’t think any of that matters to number crunchers and shareholders. Traffic and readers can be replaced as easily as writers and editors.

(Oh wait, I suddenly realized why these people called me. They know I think that…certain web sites are worse without me. Ha! I should have caught onto that earlier. I’m a little slow sometimes.)

Anyway, let me know what you think about what’s going on in AOL editorial land. Is the big company sucking the soul out of the web sites it buys? Or are popular bloggers making the situation bigger than it ought to be?

The Nintendo 3DS Expansion Slide Pad is…

Famitsu (via Andriasang) has revealed the “Expansion Slide Pad” accessory for the Nintendo 3DS. It adds an additional analog stick (definitely) and additional shoulder buttons (likely). The 3DS fits into the Expansion Slide Pad in a docking-station like manner. The first game to use the accessory will be Capcom’s Monster Hunter 3G 3DS.

The initial reaction from the gaming press contained hundreds of gallons of Haterade. While this is the usual reaction of the enthusiast press, it seems more reasonable this time around. The 3DS had a poor launch and the fear is that this accessory will be necessary for a good number of games. A lot of people feel that this Expansion Slide Pad just makes the 3DS look incomplete, especially compared to Sony’s upcoming PlayStation Vita.

I don’t think the Expansion Slide Pad will be commonly used, but I’m definitely getting flashbacks to my Sega Genesis. Stacked with a Sega 32X and a Sega CD, my Genesis looked like it was on the verge of kicking Voltron’s ass. Actually, it looked completely ridiculous. Modular consoles are…not so good.

I know that most of you are down on the 3DS as it is, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on the Expansion Slide Pad. Is it a ridiculous add-on? Will it be commonly used? Or is it merely an accessory that will satisfy millions of Monster Hunter fans in Japan?

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Sony Hires Former Homeland Security Director

Sony Corp. has hired a former director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Most of you will recall that Sony Computer Entertainment was a victim of hackers, leaving its PlayStation Network service down for several weeks. In addition to being reamed in the press, Sony had to spend a ton of money to compensate its customers for the outage. The company is hoping that a Homeland Security expert will be able to defend SCE, Sony Music, Sony Pictures, etc. from future “cyber attacks”.

Here’s more from the LA Times:

Philip Reitinger, formerly the director of Homeland Security’s National Cyber Security Center, will join Sony in the newly created position of chief information security officer and a senior vice president.

Reitinger has also worked for the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice and holds a law degree from Yale, Sony said.

As a frequent flyer, when I think of the Department of Homeland Security I automatically think of its Transportation Security Administration — you know, those people that molest and take naked photos of you at the airport. I’ve been asking several of my Sony friends if they have to have their “packages” searched before entering the office. *snicker*

Seriously though, it’s a smart hire for Sony. Hiring accomplished hackers is a great way to bolster security, but hiring a “gubment” bigwig will make shareholders feel safer. Plus, I’m going to get at least a week of jokes to use on my Sony friends.

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Monday Housekeeping: Social Toolbar Buttons Like?

– After a horrific August with AnHosting, site performance seems to be solid again. If you notice any issues, please let me know. Traffic is up again and hopefully the next few months will help improve the site’s ranking. It took a major hit in August because of the constant outages. It’ll take some time, but I’m confident that the ranking will rise again. I’d love to get the Alexa numbers back under 100,000.

– You’ll notice a pretty significant change to individual posts. I removed the social buttons that are native to this WordPress theme and replaced them with a small toolbar at the end of each post. The change improves the load time of individual stories and improves functionality. The new toolbar is simple and implements several popular services. Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon buttons are present. The new toolbar makes it super easy for you to share any RPad.tv stories that you like. Play it with it and let me know what you think (please)!

– I did have a question about the toolbar placement. One of the options is to leave it floating on the left-hand side of each individual story. It’s much more noticeable, but in my opinion it crosses the line to the obnoxious side. Leaving it at the end of each story is subtler, but also easier to skip. What do you guys and gals think? Do you like the toolbar where it is? Would it bother you to see it floating on the left-hand side?