The best part about these demo stations at Microsoft's booth was that they instantly made you look like the zombie that your mother always said you were while you were playing video games:



HAAALF-LIIIIFE TWOOOO GRAAAAARGHHH. Note that Half-Life 2 features zombies, most of which are populating the fictional town of Ravenholm, one of two playable demo areas. Amusingly, there were monitors mounted on both the inside and outside of each demo seat, so people observing my playtest (including the guy with the professional-looking video camera) got to witness the fruits of my many playthroughs of Half-Life 2 on the PC: I can hit an oppressed citizen of City 17 with an empty takeout box or broken phone receiver with incredible accuracy. I was also very, very happy that the control scheme of the demo was mapped exactly the way I like it, the way I've shot things in first person on consoles ever since Goldeneye 007. Everyone else, weaned on Halo's default controls, stumbled clumsily around whilst my Gordon Freeman zig-zag strafed and jumped about with the swiftness and grace of a ballerina, clocking bummed-out dudes in blue jumpsuits with aluminum cans. Oh, how's the port? Impressive. Aside from the inevitable lower resolution, it features all the graphical spiffiness of Valve's Source engine and even a few extra effects, courtesy of the Xbox's powerful game-oriented GPU. I can't wait to buy it, bringing the total amount of money I've spent on Half-Life 2 close to $200. Yes, it's worth it, Game of the Year, blah blah yes.



Here I am (please, once again, do ignore my fingers) with the guys from Penny Arcade. "That's a nice Power Glove she has. Rrrrrrr," said "Tycho." I smiled. "Yup," I said. We exchanged knowing grins. If you noted that, in this photograph, "Gabe" looks quite a bit like he is ready to vomit, you would not be far from the truth.



Here is Martin Leung. He is a Video Game Pianist. He is cooler than you. He moves at faster speeds than even this picture would suggest. He can play songs from Super Mario that include sound effects and also the part where Mario starts running out of time and the song goes at double speed. You may have seen the video where he did it with a blindfold on. Just don't ask him to play Castlevania or Mega Man! (Yet.) Snobs that hate joy and hate love like to point out that he is not a very technically accurate pianist, but that's why we don't like snobs.



My girlfriend, an Internet Superstar, and me. WE ARE FRIENDS <3 <3 <3



There are plenty of pictures of the Dragon Quest Slime Controller's adorable face. But have you seen the actual controller part? You'd be surprised how ergonomic a recurring enemy from a long-running roleplaying game series can be!