Before joining Tom’s Hardware, I wrote a book called Bang Your Head, where I tried to penetrate the world of heavy metal. To this day, I’m still having nightmares about having to deal with the hair bands. I still go to the metal websites, like blabbermouth.net, and metalsludge.com, from time to time to see what’s going on in the music business, before it completely goes out of business, and of course saw the news that Motley Crue were suing Tommy Lee’s manager for $20 million.

The charges? “Self dealing,” and trying to “divert revenue from [the band]…” Yet the really funny charges of the suit is the band claiming Lee’s manager “engaged” the drummer “in ‘reality’ projects that were bad career moves” that hurt “the Motley Crue brand and Lee’s own image,” further adding the show Tommy Lee Goes to College made Lee look “incoherent, lazy and incompetent.”

This is truly a hair band at its finest, suing your manager for making you look dumb. The bands I wrote about often have a self-important leader who really makes the decisions, like Axl Rose, Gene Simmons, or Motley’s bassist and founder Nikki Sixx, yet whenever a stupid move is made, the management screwed it up, the record company dropped the ball, blame flies everywhere. Yet it’s hard to convince people someone else made a boneheaded decision when you’re convinced you’re smarter than everyone else in the music business, and you’re really the one calling the shots.

In his autobiography, Where Did I Go Right, manager / producer Bernie Brillstein recalled when Garry Shandling, then in his prime with the Larry Sanders Show, sued Brillstein’s firm and painted himself “as an innocent comedian who’s been taken advantage of by an unscrupulous manager.” “Come on,” Brillstein scoffed. “Does Garry truly expect anyone to believe that he of all people could be so easily taken in?” Brillstein’s partner, Brad Grey, told the press, “This notion of a poor guy who was out there on his own is crazy. And the notion that the guy who creates the most intelligent half-hour on the inner workings of television doesn’t get it, well, you just can’t have it both ways.”

Writing on Yahoo! Music, Lyndsey Parker also hit it right on the head. Tommy Lee’s manager didn’t advise Vince Neil to be the grand marshal at the World’s Largest Chicken Dance at a Cincinnati Oktoberfest. Nor did Lee’s manager make Neil “undergo an Extreme Makeover like transformation on the VH1 reality show Remaking (only to regain all his excess weight and wrinkles in record time).”

And as recently reported on tmz.com, Neil just launched his own tequila company, despite the fact he killed the drummer of the band Hanoi Rocks while he was driving drunk (nor did the band give much thought about calling one of their greatest hits box sets “Music to Crash Your Car To”).

As far as the charges of making Lee look “incoherent, lazy and incompetent,” Parker also made a good case for the band doing a good job of that themselves with their over-rated, smoke and mirrors autobiography The Dirt, and Lee’s autobiography, Tommyland “featuring entire chapters told from the point of view of, um, Tommy’s most famous body part…” Was any of this the fault of Lee’s manager?

In a rare display of candor, or reality, for a hair band, Poison guitarist C.C. DeVille once told Guitar World why the band really fell apart, not blaming managers, the label, grunge, the janitor down the hall, or anyone else within spitting distance. “You look back, and you realize we were a bunch of spoiled f*cking brats,” he said. “How dare we complain? I had everything, and I just didn’t see it. It’s embarrassing that we could be so childish. We were clearing a hundred grand a night doing what we loved, and we argued constantly about pissy stuff. They should hand everyone who enters Hollywood an owner’s manual for real life. We certainly could have used it.”

Poor E3. For a long time it was the one time of the year when game geeks (journalists) could gather in Los Angeles and paw at underdressed spokesmodels with their clammy, sweaty hands. First they got rid of the booth babes, then they all but cancelled E3 all together. The E3 Expo as we know it is gone for good replaced by the E3 Media and Business Summit. Ooohh fancy. That doesn't sound like a place where hordes of game journalists recovering from hangovers would be welcome, but they will be in about a week. There will still be a lot of E3 coverage over the course of the show, but it still feels like the party is over. We'll have to see what it's like this year under this new, more serious disguise.

If you've always wanted to go to E3...well, it's too late. However, if you're an Xbox 360 owner you can enjoy much of the media that will be released that week over Xbox Live. Here's the press release from Microsoft.

/paste

"From Tuesday 10th July until Friday 13th July, Microsoft Corp. is bringing E3 home to owners of the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system through its second annual E3: Bringing It Home, which offers downloads on Xbox LIVE® Marketplace of the hottest content from the show."

"In addition to all this content, there will be many surprises, so fans should stay tuned to the Xbox LIVE calendar (http://www.xbox.com/en-us/live/marketplace/ticker.htm) for updates about what E3: Bringing It Home content will be available during the show."

Sounds like a lot of stuff to watch, and it will probably be much less painful than G4's coverage.

I'm finding that I spend more time playing the downloadable arcade games for the next-gen consoles than the retail releases. It's much more the case on the 360 where Geometry Wars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade, Rush'n Attack, Pac-Man CE, and just recently a new Missile Command will easily monopolize a few hours of my time, but I expect the PS3 to catch up as time goes by. I think it's the get-in-get-out quick action that lures me. It's a nice change of pace to be able to load up a game, play it for 10 or 15 minutes, and be done instead of having to schedule a few hours of time to spend on a retail game. Not to take anything away from the retail releases, but I do enjoy the DLC from Microsoft and Sony quite a bit. Xbox Live is far superior to the Playstation Network so far with many more titles and a free trial version for almost all of them, but the recent release of Super Stardust HD on the Playstation 3 goes a long way.

Super Stardust HD is an updated version of a game I've never heard of, but your initial reaction will probably be, "Oh, this is a really pretty Asteroids played on a rotating sphere." That's not inaccurate, but it does sell the game short a bit. You do shoot a lot of asteroids and aliens, but your ship is armed with three different guns that are all upgradable. You've got your rock smasher for the regular asteroids, the ice breaker for the big ice chunks, and the gold melter for the gold boulders. Each planet has a theme rock and a huge boss UFO, but you'll still be switching weapons regularly. Super Stardust HD has some impressive visual pinache and the framerate never drops no matter how many asteroids and UFOs are bouncing around on screen (the asteroids do collide and bounce off each other). It may feel easy in the early levels, but it will very quickly become complete chaos later on. You'll get plenty of use out of those screen-clearning bombs. For $8 you can't go wrong especially since the Playstation Network is largely a barren wasteland for good arcade games.

Sometimes, you can just tell when a game is going to be good. The best example in recent memory was seeing Crysis at E3 last year. It was one of those games that people raved about. The buzz about Crytek’s new shooter permeated the Los Angeles Convention Center like cannabis smoke at a Phish concert. There was little doubt when the mammoth video game show wrapped up that Crysis was one of the hottest – if not the hottest – titles previewed at the event.

One of the bigger titles to be previewed this week at the new E3 Media & Business Summit this week will be none other than Guitar Hero III: The Legends of Rock. After the first two games, Guitar Hero has become a bona fide phenomenon that has elevated and transcended gaming. So how does publisher RedOctane plan to top the previous titles? By adding a real guitar hero to the mix.

As part of the E307 Microsoft Press Event Epic Lead Designer Cliffy B was kind enough to show some of the recently announced Gears of War for the PC. It was only a few minutes of footage but PC gamers will finally be able to do what Gears of War fans have been clamoring to do since the game's release; take on the behemoth Brumak. Gears of War on PC will not only feature the Brumak fight but also five new single-player chapters, new multiplayer modes, and new achievements for Games for Windows Live. An editor will also ship with the PC version, but details on it are scarce at the moment.

We were also able to procure some newly released screenshots taken from the PC version and the stronger hardware looks to improve on an already impressive game. From what was shown during the conference the perspective remains the same as the 360 version (third person) but the die-hard FPS crowd should still give this a look. It's an excellent game. Click the thumbnails below for the hi-res versions.

Midway and Epic Games offered of a quick look at the upcoming Unreal Tournament 3 Wednesday at E3 2007. But before doing so, they announced that the game would be exclusive to the PlayStation 3 and PC – but for 2007 only. Unreal Tournament 3 will arrive for the Xbox 360 in 2008, according to the companies. The game will first arrive on the PS3 and PC this November. And when it lands, Unreal Tournament 3 will sport a whole new look with some impressive features.

Harmonix, the leading developer of music-based games, MTV Games, a division of MTV Networks which is a division of Viacom (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), and rock icons Metallica announced today a deal that will showcase the incredible depth of the band’s music in the highly anticipated videogame Rock Band™. The Grammy-award winning thrashers are making key tracks from their celebrated catalog available as digitally-distributed game levels. The incomparable metal song “Enter Sandman,” will ship on the game’s disc this holiday season.

“Metallica is one of the best loved bands in the world and their albums redefined hard rock and metal. Its one of the bands we had to bring to the Rock Band experience,” said Alex Rigopulos, co-founder and CEO of Harmonix. “Rock Band will allow gamers to jam with the guys through their long, successful career, from young, raw talent to mega stars, playing the hard-rocking sounds that the band is known for.”

And here's some additional information about the song list for the game and the album downloads.

Harmonix, the leading developer of music-based games, and MTV Games, a division of MTV Networks which is a division of Viacom (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), announced today that one of the most influential records in rock history, The Who’s iconic Who’s Next, will become the first full length album available as a digitally-distributed game level for the upcoming videogame Rock Band™ - a first ever offering for a videogame. In addition to announcing full-length album availability, MTV Games and Harmonix also announced the first 16 Rock Band songs, spanning every genre of rock from alternative to classic to heavy metal. As previously announced Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) will serve as the exclusive distribution and marketing partner for Rock Band, managing distribution for the game in US, Europe and Australia.

“Offering entire albums for play on the Rock Band platform is a monumental step forward in Harmonix’s ever present quest to provide new ways for people to interact with music and creating the most authentic music experience possible,” stated Alex Rigopulos, co-founder and CEO, Harmonix. “This will give players the opportunity to play through the entire album set list of arguably some of the most influential rock albums of all time and brings them one step closer to what it feels like to be a true rock star.”

Who’s Next will be the first album available for Rock Band owners to purchase soon after the game’s release with new content planned every week following Rock Band’s launch this Holiday. Universal Music Group along with other top record labels and music publishers announced earlier this year an unprecedented partnership with Harmonix and MTV to provide music for Rock Band, with this artist being the first of many being announced in the months ahead.

The Who’s Who’s Next (1971 Release)

1. “Baba O’Riley”
2. “Bargain”
3. “Love Ain’t for Keepin’”
4. “My Wife (Entwistle)”
5. “The Song Is Over”
6. “Getting in Tune”
7. “Going Movile”
8. “Behind Blue Eyes”
9. “Won’t Get Fooled Again”

FIRST 16 OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCED ROCK BAND SONGS:

1970s
The Who "Won't Get Fooled Again"
Mountain "Mississippi Queen"*
David Bowie "Suffragette City"
Black Sabbath "Paranoid"*
Blue Oyster Cult "Don't Fear the Reaper"
The Ramones "Rockaway Beach”

1980s
Rush "Tom Sawyer"*
Bon Jovi "Wanted Dead or Alive"

1990s
Nirvana "In Bloom"
Stone Temple Pilots "Vasoline"
Weezer "Say It Ain't So"
Foo Fighters “Learn to Fly”
Metallica “Enter Sandman”

2000s
The Hives "Main Offender"
The Strokes "Reptilia"
Queens of the Stone Age "Go With the Flow"

*Indicates a cover song, all others songs are original master recordings

Ask longtime PC gamers to list their all-time favorite games and you'll find that Fallout and Fallout 2 find themselves on those lists frequently. The core Fallout series (ignoring the spinoffs) was always about a deeply immersive role-playing experience in a post-apocalyptic game world that allowed for...shall we say a certain moral flexibility. Fallout 3 hopes to continue that trend.

Both Fallout and Fallout 2 were 2D games played from an isometric view that employed a turn-based combat engine for both melee and ranged weapons. The combat was slow but tense. When Interplay closed down the death of Fallout 3 seemed imminent. Resurrected by Bethesda Fallout 3 may have evolved beyond it's 2D isometric roots but they claim the game play and immersion are all intact. Here are some newly released facts and screenshots from the game. I also included some of the older screenshots and concept art in case you haven't seen those. Just click the small pics for the hi-res versions.

RELEASE DATE: Fall 2008
PLATFORM: Windows / Xbox 360™ / PLAYSTATION®3 system
GENRE: Post Nuclear Role-Playing

DESCRIPTION: Vault-Tec engineers have worked around the clock on an interactive reproduction of Wasteland life for you to enjoy from the comfort of your own vault. Included is an expansive world, unique combat, shockingly realistic visuals, tons of player choice, and an incredible cast of dynamic characters. Every minute is a fight for survival against the terrors of the outside world – radiation, Super Mutants, and hostile mutated creatures. From Vault-Tec®, America’s First Choice in Post Nuclear Simulation™.

STORY: Vault 101 – Jewel of the Wastes. For 200 years, Vault 101 has faithfully served the surviving residents of Washington DC and its environs, now known as the Capital Wasteland. Though the global atomic war of 2077 left the US all but destroyed, the residents of Vault 101 enjoy a life free from the constant stress of the outside world. Giant Insects, Raiders, Slavers, and yes, even Super Mutants are all no match for superior Vault-Tec® engineering. Yet one fateful morning, you awake to find that your father has defied the Overseer and left the comfort and security afforded by Vault 101 for reasons unknown. Leaving the only home you’ve ever known, you emerge from the Vault into the harsh Wasteland sun to search for your father, and the truth.

KEY FEATURES:
Limitless Freedom! – Take in the sights and sounds of the vast Capital Wasteland! See the great monuments of the United States lying in post-apocalyptic ruin! You make the choices that define you and change the world. Just keep an eye on your Rad Meter!

Experience S.P.E.C.I.A.L.! – Vault-Tec® engineers bring you the latest in human ability simulation – the SPECIAL Character System! Utilizing new breakthroughs in points-based ability representation, SPECIAL affords unlimited customization of your character. Also included are dozens of unique skills and perks to choose from, each with a dazzling variety of effects!

Fantastic New Views! – The wizards at Vault-Tec® have done it again! No longer constrained to just one view, experience the world from 1st or 3rd person perspective. Customize your view with the touch of a button!

The Power of Choice! – Feeling like a dastardly villain today, or a Good Samaritan? Pick a side or walk the line, as every situation can be dealt with in many different ways. Talk out your problems in a civilized fashion, or just flash your Plasma Rifle.

Blast ‘Em Away With V.A.T.S.! –Even the odds in combat with the Vault-Tec® Assisted Targeting System for your Pip-Boy Model 3000! V.A.T.S. allows you to pause time in combat, target specific body parts on your target, queue up attacks, and let Vault-Tec take out your aggression for you. Rain death and destruction in an all-new cinematic presentation featuring gory dismemberments and spectacular explosions.

Mind-Blowing Artificial Intelligence! – At Vault-Tec®, we realize that the key to reviving civilization after a global nuclear war is people. Our best minds pooled their efforts to produce an advanced version of Radiant AI, America’s First Choice in Human Interaction Simulation™. Facial expressions, gestures, unique dialog, and lifelike behavior are brought together with stunning results by the latest in Vault-Tec® technology.

Eye-Popping Prettiness!* – Witness the harsh realities of nuclear fallout rendered like never before in modern super-deluxe HD graphics. From the barren Wasteland, to the danger-filled offices and metro tunnels of DC, to the hideous rotten flesh of a mutant’s face.

*Protective Eyewear Encouraged.

A while back, I blogged about the proposed sequel to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. Upon hearing the news that Ukranian developer GSC Game World was planning more Stalker games, I expressed some skepticism. My reasons were simple; I had been looking forward to Stalker for some time, but the game ultimately disappointed me. The graphics were clunky and outdated, and while the game blended elements of first-person shooter action, role-playing games, and survival horror, I didn’t feel like the game did any of them particularly well. So my expectations for GSC’s new game, which was previewed at E3 2007 last week, were fairly low. I didn’t have much interest in seeing or playing Stalker: Clear Sky, but I nevertheless strolled by the GSC booth and took a look.

A lot can change in a week. Last Tuesday, Microsoft corporate vice president Peter Moore presided over the company’s media briefing at E3 2007. He jammed on Rock Band (see the photo below) and previewed a host of potential blockbuster titles for both the Xbox 360 and Windows. Moore, who had become the face of Microsoft’s games business over the last year or so, also did a ton of interviews with the gaming media about future games and Microsoft’s growing Xbox 360 business. Well, that didn't last long...

Valve scored another boatload of games for Steam this week, thanks to a new partnership with publisher THQ. Top titles such as the critically acclaimed RTS Company of Heroes, Titan Quest, and Full Spectrum Warrior are currently available on the digital distribution network. In fact, Company of Heroes and the Titan Quest Complete Pack (which includes Titan Quest: Immortal Throne) and Full Spectrum Warrior Complete Pack (which includes the sequel Ten Hammers) are currently among the top sellers on Steam.

THQ will also bring more games to Steam in the near future, including Supreme Commander, STALKER.: Shadow of Chernobyl, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War Gold Edition, and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. The Valve partnership is part of a larger digital distribution effort for THQ; last month the publisher signed a deal for IGN’s Direct2Drive download service. THQ added Supreme Commander and STALKER to Direct2Drive, which may explain why Steam doesn’t have those two hit titles yet. I’m sure some type of agreement was in place for Direct2Drive to have exclusive digital distribution rights to STALKER and Supreme Commander for a fixed period of time.

In any event, Steam will get STALKER and Supreme Commander at some point. Even without those two big games, Steam has continued to roll this year with a number of huge additions to the network. Last month, Capcom became the first Japanese game publisher to embrace Steam by adding games like Devil May Cry 3 and Lost Planet. In addition, Valve has added titles from major publishers such as 2K Games, Activision, Eidos Interactive, and Majesco in recent years.

Last October, a truly hilarious and clever episode of the animated television series “South Park” poked fun at the gaming phenomenon known as World of WarCraft. The episode, titled “Make Love, Not WarCraft,” offered up a extremely witty take on the MMORPG and gaming in general, and it is easily one of my favorite episodes of “South Park.” Now the classic episode, which has become wildly popular since airing last fall, is being justly recognized for its achievements with an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Animated Program.

I have to confess my ignorance...I honestly had no idea the rabid following the Transformer toys had until the success of the movie. It was a bit past my time, I was already past my toy car and truck phase when they started getting popular in the ‘80’s. Of course you can’t help but see the fans of the toys are overjoyed with the movie, it’s fulfilled their expectations and then some, and I had no idea the movie would cause this kind of insanity. I can understand fans losing their minds anticipating a good Batman movie because there were so many bad ones, Spider-Man and The Simpsons because it took so long for both to reach the big screen, but Transformers?

When I was writing for Creative Screenwriting magazine, I talked to the writing team of Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who penned the Transformers script, and also worked together on the show Alias. When I spoke to them in early 2005, they had two features on the way, Michael Bay’s The Island, and Mission: Impossible 3, and were writing the Transformers script.

Kurtzman and Orci were both fans of Michael Bay before working with him, and they formed a strong bond with him when they were making The Island. “It’s interesting to write a script with a director already on board because you kind of know what you’re going to get, and you can write towards that,” said Orci. “So it made the target more manageable in a way. Because we know his movies and we’re fans, we knew we could write something that maybe in someone else’s hands could be too much, and he’d be able to handle it. It let us focus the action in a very specific way knowing what the scale would be, and how it would turn out.”

With that in mind, they knew how to hit the target with Transformers. Bay had two goals in mind. He wanted to make the ultimate car film, and surprisingly, he also wanted to make a movie for kids. Steven Spielberg was reportedly a big force behind the scenes with Transformers, and as Kurtzman told me, “When we sat down with Spielberg to figure out what the story was going to be, the first question we asked him was, ‘How do we make this a movie that isn’t about the toys? Because as writers we don’t really understand how to write two hours of toys.’”

For a high concept movie, meaning a story that can be pitched in thirty seconds or less, Spielberg solved the problem high concept style: “This is the story of a boy and his car.” “We instantly understood what that meant,” Kurtzman continues, “because when you get your first car, every expectation and hope you have at that age is wrapped up in it. It means freedom, it means sex, it means everything.”

Orci also recalled saying to Spielberg, “At the risk of referencing your own movies back to you, take Close Encounters. As much as it’s about an alien landing, the heart of that story is a family disintegrating. We want to make sure we can find something like that in Transformers, something that’s equally compelling as a character story that allows a frame for giant robots in disguise.”

Bay has never been a critics darling, Transformers being no exception, and the fans who love the movie couldn’t care less. “Michael’s primary concern is with the audience,” said Orci. “I know he’d like critical acclaim, but he talks to his audience and that’s one of the great things we learned about him. He just wants to make sure they have a good time. The rest of it doesn’t really matter.”

The news came out of London today that Ubisoft is publishing Far Cry 2 for PC in Spring 2008. There was very little revealed about the game so far and there is no mention of it being built on the existing CryENGINE technology that is powering Crysis.

The press release states that Ubisoft is developing Far Cry 2 internally at their Montreal Studios so there is also no mention of original Far Cry and Crysis developer Crytek. The current CryENGINE technology is so far advanced from what anyone else is doing these days it seems like a no-brainer to use it for a Far Cry sequel, but game companies are protective of their intellectual properties. Unless the pockets of businessmen are sufficiently filled beforehand there will be no sharing. I imagine we'll find out soon enough once Crysis comes out. If it is reviewed well and it shares the same engine as Far Cry 2, you can bet that will become one of the top marketing bullets.

Here is the brief press release from Ubisoft. Read into it what you will.

London, UNITED KINGDOM – July 20, 2007 – Today Ubisoft, one of the world’s largest video game publishers, announced that it will launch Far Cry® 2 in Spring 2008 for PC. Far Cry 2 is being developed in Ubisoft’s Montreal studio.

The original Far Cry® won PC Gamer’s Action Game of the Year Award in 2004. Since then the combined installments of the Far Cry® brand has gathered critical acclaim and numerous awards, and sold over 3 million units.

“Far Cry marked the beginning of a new era for shooters. An era of gorgeous graphics and of advanced artificial intelligence,” declared John Parkes, EMEA marketing director at Ubisoft. “We are confident that Far Cry 2 will have the same impact again on the FPS genre landscape.”

Check www.farcrygame.com regularly for more news.

Japanese game publisher Capcom announced this week that it will have a far bigger presence at Com-Con 2007 in San Diego next week than it did at the recent E3 Media & Business Summit in Santa Monica. So does this mean 3 is becoming irrelevant or does is signal a great convergence between gaming, movies, comics and other pop culture media?

Who knew that celebrities love flame wars just like the rest of us? About a month ago I posted this story about Clive Barker taking issue with comments made over a year ago by Roger Ebert concerning the nature of videogames as art. In short Barker said that art was an undefinable abstract and that claiming that videogames were definitely not art was ignorant. I felt it was only fair to post the follow-up. A few days ago Roger Ebert responded to Barker's claims on his own website, and like any good flame war, he takes quotes from Barker and address each individually.

Ebert admits that his initial claim about videogames may have been somewhat rash, but goes on to write that he stands by it. He spends much of the time discussing the definition of art and defending himself but still writes a little about videogames in general. Here are some snippets:

"Anything can be art. Even a can of Campbell's soup. What I should have said is that games could not be high art, as I understand it. How do I know this? How many games have I played? I know it by the definition of the vast majority of games. They tend to involve (1) point and shoot in many variations and plotlines, (2) treasure or scavenger hunts, as in "Myst," and (3) player control of the outcome. I don't think these attributes have much to do with art; they have more in common with sports."

"Barker: "It's evident that Ebert had a prejudiced vision of what the medium is, or more importantly what it can be."

Ebert: The word "prejudiced" often translates as "disagrees with me." I might suggest that gamers have a prejudiced view of their medium, and particularly what it can be. Games may not be Shakespeare quite yet, but I have the prejudice that they never will be, and some gamers are prejudiced that they will."

Barker: "I'm not doing an evangelical job here. I'm just saying that gaming is a great way to do what we as human beings need to do all the time -- to take ourselves away from the oppressive facts of our lives and go somewhere where we have our own control."

Ebert: Spoken with the maturity of an honest and articulate 4-year old. I do not have a need "all the time" to take myself away from the oppressive facts of my life, however oppressive they may be, in order to go somewhere where I have control. I need to stay here and take control. Right now, for example, I cannot speak, but I am writing this. You lose some, you win some."

I get what Ebert is saying, and much of it does come from a peripheral understanding of the video game culture. He doesn't know games and he doesn't play games, but he's aware of games. That's fine, games aren't for everyone, and I get the sense that he isn't attacking videogames (or gamers) at all. He's more concerned with their classification (or lack thereof) as "art".

Personally, I don't think you can tell anyone what "art" is. My response to a lot of "art" I've seen is usually, "That isn't art. That's just some dude hanging flags in the park." That doesn't make it right, it just makes it my opinion. However my opinion is valid as long as I voice it and so is Ebert's. Certainly not all games are art. I think videogames are a collaborative art form and that some contain an experience that is worthy of being called "art". Others though...well...they're just garbage.

You can read Ebert's full write-up here.

E3 has been over for a while now, but even a smaller, downsized video game show takes some time to digest. This year’s show was especially tough, despite the smaller venues, because of the sheer volume of top-shelf games and blockbuster titles lined up for the rest of the year, from Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV to Crysis and Rock Band.

And since the show ended, we’ve had plenty of follow-up news to chat about like Peter Moore’s departure from Microsoft and the PlayStation 3’s sort-of-but-not-really price cut. I had a chance to cure my E3 2007 hangover on Uncle Gamer Radio with Uncle Gamer co-host Parris as well as JVB of the Halo podcast Podtacular (both shows are part of the GamerCast Network). Parris and I reflected on our experiences attending E3 this year, from the Barker Hangar booths to the most exciting and disappointing titles, while JVB gave his perspective from watching the E3 media briefings from afar.

While Moore’s exit to EA Sports and the PS3 price cut controversy dominated the early part of the show, we also spent a lot of time discussing the hot titles from E3 like Call of Duty 4 and BioShock, as well as surprises like Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction (our favorite). We also dissected the hype around titles like Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Madden NFL 2008. And chatted about two big upcoming RPGs – Mass Effect and Fallout 3 – and what looks like the better game.

I’ve done a few shows now with Uncle Gamer and it’s been a great experience. They called me in for their 11th episode a story I wrote about concerning the Cyberathlete Professional League and drug testing, and have also had me on to discuss CES news and the solar-powered Wii that we built at Tom’s Hardware Guide. Parris and Robbie (the artists formerly known as Vicious and Liquilife) have a great dynamic, and Jay from Skeptical Gaming also does a great job when he’s on the show. And even though I sometimes sound like Kermit the Frog, podcasting can be pretty fun.

There was an intense panic right before the last Harry Potter book came out last Friday at midnight. There were people trying to spoil the ending everywhere, and fans were on guard. The headline on foxnews.com: “Harry Potter Fans Beg: Don’t Spoil So Close to Me.” The New York Times proclaimed: “Defenders of the Secrets, Unite!”

Potter publisher Scholastic tried to plug the leaks as fast as it could, but they needn’t have worried. There was no way any true Harry Potter fan would have blown it for anyone, nor would they want to know how the saga finally comes to an end. I asked a friend of mine who’s a big fan of the Potter series if she’s going to rush ahead to the end of the book to see how it ends. Nope, she’s gonna savor the entire thing from front to back, and won’t know the end ‘til she gets there. Another friend of mine who is a big Potter fan told me if anyone told him the end of this book, he’d punch ‘em dead in the face.

Audiences are usually pretty good at keeping secrets if the story plays fair. They kept the secret with Psycho, The Crying Game, The Usual Suspects (which would have been hard to give away the ending without trying to explain the whole thing from beginning to end, and good luck with that), and The Sixth Sense. In fact, The Crying Game ad campaign was built around the fact that the movie had a secret you wouldn’t dare reveal to anyone who hadn’t seen it, and it helped make the film a huge success.

Once when Alfred Hitchcock made a film, he made the cast and crew raise their right hands and promise not to reveal any of the movie’s secrets. Good luck doing that today. He also made sure that no one was allowed in to see Psycho once the movie started. The audience had to see the movie from beginning to end because no one would have suspected a big star like Janet Leigh would have been killed off so early in the movie. Good luck trying to organize that in the days of the multiplex, where movies open at thousands of theaters opening day.

Nowadays filmmakers go to great lengths to keep things under wraps, whether it’s printing scripts on red paper so they can’t be Xeroxed, or making cast and crew sign confidentiality deals promising they won’t reveal anything about the movie. I can imagine there may come a day when studios get so paranoid about leaks that the film’s director won’t be allowed on the set, and will have to give directions by walkie-talkie blocks away. But as Potter and the previous films I’ve mentioned have proved, if you play fair with an audience, there’s no way they’ll deprive someone the joy of finding everything out themselves.

Creative types, especially in Hollywood and the music business, are often very thin-skinned and unreceptive to criticism, no matter how petty or trivial. Which is why I wasn’t surprised to see Bruce Willis and director Michael Bay sniping back and forth at each other via the net, proving once again the old cliché that Hollywood is high school with money.

Eli Roth appeared at Comic-Con 2007 in San Diego Saturday to promote the DVD and Blu-ray disc of his movie “Hostel: Part 2,” which didn’t fare so well at the box office back in June. One of the reasons Roth says the horror sequel bombed was because the movie was rampantly pirated both before and after the films opening weekend. During a press conference for the “Hostel: Part 2” DVD, I asked Roth about piracy and illegal downloading and he opened up on what has become a sore subject for the director.

When I got up early last Friday morning my mission was clear: get into the Warner Brothers presentation at Comic-Con by any means necessary. Everyone knew that Warners was going to talk about "Watchmen" but the word on the street was that they were also going to show some footage from next year's sequel to "Batman Begins" titled "The Dark Knight". We waited patiently through the two hour presentation in Hall H, but after the "Watchmen" panel (read more about that here) the lights came up and it just ...ended. No mention of a new Batman movie, no poster, no new picture of Heath Ledger as the Joker, nothing. Many of us remained riveted to our seats by shock. We thought, "Isn't this Comic-Con? Isn't Batman kind of a big comic book character? Isn't the movie coming out next summer?" I thought Warners had missed a golden opportunity to drum up some excellent buzz. What I didn't know is that something was going on outside.

There are a lot of conflicting details but what I've been able to put together is that through carefully placed defaced dollar bills, recruitment posters, and a phone number written in the sky people were directed to a lot across from the San Diego convention center at 10:00 am Friday morning. They were also lead to a website at www.whysoserious.com that had a countdown timer. Once the countdown hit zero a teaser for the movie went up on the site along with a faked police report about the Joker gathering followers in San Diego and painting their faces. Point your browser to whysoserious now and it bounces to this site showing the faces of a number of Comic-Con attendees painted up like the Joker.

The marketing for "The Dark Knight" has done this before with websites like www.ibelieveinharveydent.com and www.ibelieveinharveydenttoo.com (which has since been pulled) that revealed the first official image of the Joker from the film. I think the viral marketing angle is kind of cool, but I still would have liked to see Chris Nolan and some of the cast at the Con on a panel. Maybe I'm just greedy.

Here's the teaser below. It's a shame that it's basically all audio, but that's what "tease" means.