The Long Awaited GTA: IV Trailer Will Be Soon Upon Us...

Ah, the Grand Theft Auto series. Whether you’re a hardcore gamer, concerned parent, or irrational politician, , you know about it. Hell, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years you don’t have to fit in one of the three mentioned categories to be all knowing of this revolutionary series. Praised for it’s open-ended game play, entertaining story-lines and characters, and mature-themes (for which it’s also criticized in the news media for), Grand Theft Auto was last generation’s utmost force in gaming.

Now, in just a few short hours, we’ll finally catch a glimpse of Grand Theft Auto: IV, which will be hitting the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 this October. The setting, characters, look and everything else will be unveiled soon. Rockstar was very clever in setting this whole thing up… making us wait all this time for a mere trailer. Well, I’ll update this post later when the trailer is finally unveiled to the public, and until then, these next few hours are going to pass by slower than geometry class did back in high school.

Custom Consoles: Why Not Let Your Console Stand Out?

Sure, game consoles usually look great and are well-thought out in design (let’s just forget about some of those forgotten “classic” console mishaps and the original Xbox, shall we?) but if you’re ultimately not satisfied with how your shiny new console looks, you can either put a whole bunch of work into it and make it look unique, or just pay an outrageous sum of money on eBay for some schmo to do it for you! Here are some custom console designs found through the listings of eBay, and even an Xbox 360 prototype as well (have you ever wondered what a 360 would look like if it was black? Well, wonder no longer, you curious bean). Enjoy.

Zelda Triforce Wii:

That's one swanky looking Wii, eh? You can bid on this custom-made Wii here. The current bid for this one-of-a-kind Wii is over $1,000! Hey, it's worth shelling out a thousand bucks to impress your relatives and make your friends jealous, right?

This prototype Xbox 360 is quite cool looking as well. Although the beautiful whi

te current Xbox 360 was a nice change of pace from the standard black console, I wouldn't mind if this was the one originally released at retail. There are actually rumors of a fresh new black Xbox 360 hitting retail sometime before the summer - as always, I'll keep ya posted on that...

White PS2: How classy!

Wait, so maybe the original Xbox isn't so ugly after all! This green Xbox, known as the 'Halo Xbox' (because it came packed in with a copy of Halo) was sold at retail for a limited time. Now the only way to purchase this stylish Xbox is off- you gussed it- eBay.

Super Mario Through the Years

Although choosing the best Mario game for many can be debatable (not for me, however – I happily proclaim Super Mario World as the definitive title in the entire series), there’s no arguing that the graphics in the series have improved over time. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane (and later, when we get to the upcoming Wii adventures, Super Mario Galaxy and Super Paper Mario, the future, as well) and compare the visuals found throughout the Super Mario adventures.

The 2D years (in chronological order)

The 3D Years


I did not include any handheld Mario adventures, as I am not quite such a die-hard fan of those and I did not feel that they were essential to this list.

Also, here's a quick update on Super Mario Galaxy: Although a specific release date has not been confirmed, it's definitely slated for release this year. So far early versions of Super Mario Galaxy have been receiving great feedback from players. All I know is that more Wiis are bound to fly off shelves once this monster of a title hits... I hope it makes up for 2002's rather dissappointing Super Mario Sunshine...

Club Nintendo: What Everyone Outside of Japan is Missing

Here in the U.S. if you purchase a brand-new title by Nintendo, there will be a code in the box on the back of the game manual to register your game on Nintendo’s website. What do you get for joining Club Nintendo and registering games in the U.S., basically showing your loyalty to the big N? Possibly some free games? Nope. Neat little items based on Nintendo games? Uh-uh. So what do you get? Basically…. nothing worth noting (except for Nintendo now having knowledge of your home address and e-mail).

In Nintendo’s home land of Japan, however, you get all types of nifty items that will appeal to any hardcore Nintendo fan. For showing your support for Nintendo in the Land of the Rising Sun, you’d receive awesome Nintendo merchandise, custom collectibles, and, occasionally, even games. Some of the items in the past year given away to Japanese Club Nintendo members were Animal Crossing tape, cool notebooks featuring popular Nintendo characters, collectible cards, a holder for DS games and stylus, Mario-themed washcloths, dog tags, and Game & Watch Collection, a highly sought-after DS title that compiles three classic Game & Watch games onto one cart.

More recently, however, Nintendo is offering the choice of one of two items to chose from: a customized Wii remote featuring your very own Mii character permanently printed on it or another sure-to-be sought after eBay collectible: Tingle’s Balloon Fight DS. Tingle’s Balloon Fight DS is a bizarre DS update of the Nintendo classic balloon fight except it now stars that wacky tingle from Zelda: the Wind

Waker.

Hey, Nintendo… The U.S. (and the rest of the world, for that matter) buys Nintendo products just like Japan does. How ‘bout giving us loyal Nintendo fans around the world some exclusive goodies as well?

Take a Look At This Harvest Moon Heroes Footage, Wii one...

Ah, Harvest Moon. Although a few of the entries in the cult-classic series are some of my favorite games of all time, the overall quality of the franchise is inconsistent, so I can’t really call it a first-rate series. However, maybe Natsume will learn from previous mistakes when they release Harvest Moon Wii sometime for, you guessed it, the Wii (let’s also hope they scrape that uninspired name as well). In the mean time, while we all speculate on how it’ll turn out, here’s some actual footage from Harvest Moon Wii: