I listen to a ton of podcasts but I have been missing an amazing one. Robert Ashley has put together an great podcast that investigates gaming culture (It isn’t so much as podcast as it is a monthly “internet radio show”). Robert has extremely high production value and is straight to the point. Right now, there are three episodes available to listen to. If you like listing to gaming podcasts and would like something new and interesting, check out A Life Well Wasted.

Hello everyone. I want to start out and thank you for visiting the site. As you may have noticed, news on the site has slowed down a bit. I am usually unable to post during the day since I have a full time job but Deadly Cyclone has been doing a great job keeping the site up to date. He recently started working full time hours and will also busy during the day.

What does this mean for the site? Well, for one, we will try to keep you up to date as much as possible but we also know that we wont have the time to bring you a ton of breaking news during the day. We have been looking at some options and one is to focus more on editorials and features while still reporting the bigger news. Also, we would like to get some forums going soon.

We would like to hear your suggestions of anything you’d like to see happen here. I am also working on a site redesign that will hopefully be easier to navigate and allow for us to do some cool things.

Thanks again for supporting our site and we hope to have some updates for you soon

I recently walked into my local GameStop and saw three copies of Mario Kart Wii sitting behind the counter. I’ve been casually looking for a copy for awhile but have never seen one in the wild. But I still had one thing holding me back.

I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed Mario Kart since the Super Nintendo version. Sure, the others had their moments, but Super Mario Kart was, to me, the best game in the series. It was simple to pick up but could be mastered by veterans. I still play it a lot to this day. Nintendo went on to release several other Mario Karts since, all which I own. Mario Kart became less about skill and more about the random luck of items. The N64 version probably had some of the worst rubber-band AI I’ve ever seen in a racing game. No matter how many boosts or shortcuts you took, they were always right behind you. With each addition to the series, the items got more and more cheap. Skill could still win you the race but chance had a huge part in it. I could go on about how I dislike the direction Nintendo took the series but I’ve ranted enough.

So I’m standing there in GameStop, trying to decide what to do. Should I give Nintendo more money to fuel the domination of the Wii? Well, that’s just what I did. I took a chance with a series I lost hope in being what I wanted and what did I find? After four straight hours of playing the game, I can happily say I enjoy Mario Kart again. Yeah, some of the things I couldn’t stand in the later games, such as the cheap items, are present again. But Nintendo managed to add in enough depth to keep me playing. Between corner boosting, the new addition of stunts, and the bikes, there is plenty to master.

I used my GameCube controller to play the game but the motion controls make for an interesting experience. For anyone on the fence with Mario Kart Wii, I recommend trying it out.

Just some interesting notes from me today, I was browsing the web and stumbled upon Geoff Keighley’s Twitter feed, which took me to the image you see below (after the jump) from GTA4.net. The image is of a full wall mural ad for The Lost & Damned DLC in New York City. We all remember the ad for GTA:IV before launch, it is cool to see that they have continued this with the DLC.

I personally wish more game companies would have ads like this, or ads in general. Yeah, the recession is cutting back on everyone’s marketing budget but it is cool to see the games you play advertised like this, especially when Liberty City is basically NYC. Hopefully we see more mural ads to come, good work R*!

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Thanks to Trixie360 via Twitter I saw that Xbox.com had a new “Free your Avatar” feature in which you can add your avatar to multiple backgrounds (including uploaded ones) and add props to make various images for things such as iPhone backgrounds, MSN display images, and Facebook profile pictures. I jumped on and messed around with it a bit to make a GamePlay Unlimited avatar card and my results are shown to the left (bigger image after the jump). If you want to make something like it for your avatar head to the Xbox.com page.

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The blog section is where the editors of GamePlay Unlimited can post about what they are playing and give you their opinions on the industry (about anything else they would like). This section should not be considered news, it is for opinions.

Thanks and we’ll have some blog entries posted soon,
StingJR