As some of you may already know, I am a huge Afro Samurai fanboy. In my opinion, its the best anime ever. Season one even de-throned my anime dynamic duo of Fist of the North Star, and Ninja Scroll–which were the animes that got me IN to anime. Afro Samurai is a mixture of visceral gratuitous violence, and old school 70s era coolness. The characters are framed in cyber-punk spliced feudal Japan world where folks fight with swords and single shot muskets, yet carry around Blackberrys and laptops, and the villians are whizes at advanced cybernetic robotics. Mix well with REAL hip-hop (not that comercial crap that passes for hip-hop today) beats fueled by the RZA, voice talents of Ron Perlman and Samuel L. “I hope they burn in hell!” Jackson, and you’ve got a recipe for fanboy fanatacism.

Needless to say, I was very interested when I heard about Namco and their Surge studio bringing Afro to the gamespace. So, is a ravenous fanboy of all things Afro able to set aside bias and judge the game on its merits alone? Click the jump to find out…

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I’m a fighting game fanatic–always have been, always will be. The fighting genre of games is the ONLY genre that I will buy peripherals for; i.e. controllers that were engineered with the fighting game in mind.

With Street Fighter HD Remix on my PS3, and highly anticipated fighters on the horizon like BlazBlue, and Tekken 6, I found myself in need of a high end stick solution.. I had been using my Hori Real Arcade Pro 2 stick in conjunction with a PS2 to PS3 controller converter, but the inherent lag with this system (particularly with games like Street Fighter 3 and HD Remix) was becomming frustrating. I knew the Hori Real Aarcade Pro 3 had been out in Japan for a while, but the idea of paying that international shipping cost on top of the $100 plus price tag didn’t set well with the ‘ol wallet. Amazon.com to the rescue!

Amazon’s US site has received an alotment of Real Arcade Pro 3 sticks for the American market, and, since I’m a Prime member, I decided to jump on the opportunity, and boy, am I glad I did.

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This game is gorgeous, controls well, has a decent story, and “ooh-aah” combat. Yet, in spite of all it has going for it, I fear that it may be the latest title to continue a dirty trend that may ruin videogames as we know them. What am I talking about? Click below to read more.

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I have just spent about 3 hours (over two days) in Sony’s Home public beta. We all like the idea of the time we spend doing something counting for something, but this to me has been three hours of my life that I will never get back. The thought of wasting time is depressing, so I’ve been endulging in my 2nd drink, to help me forget the pain…

So, before my second Kahlua and milk on the rocks send my memories of Home to my mental Recycle Bin forever, I thought I’d share some of the pain I experienced with the GHR community. You know what they say–misery loves company. So, please–click the link and join me on my beta journey of woe.

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I’ve been using the Astro A40 Audio system for about 6 months now, and let me tell you, it is flat out amazing. For those of you unfamiliar with what this system is all about, let me give you the low down. Astro Gaming wanted to develop a headphone system that catered to gamers that were tired of buying retrofitted office products. To that end, they worked with teams from Major League Gaming (MLG) in order to develop what they feel is the best surround sound headphone system on the market today. Buying the full system will net you the A40 Headset, MixAmp (which utilizes Dolby Headphone technology to produce 5.1 digital surround sound through two speakers), detachable microphone, swappable “speaker tags,” and enough cabling to hook up your system to virtually any system on the market today. At $250 for the complete setup, the price tag is kind of steep, but you DO get your moneys worth. For an idea of the massive amounts of stuff that this package includes, check out the photos from my unboxing. More detailed information about this product and the company can be found at Astro Gaming’s website. I tested the A40 Audio system extensively on Xbox 360 in Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, and Gears of War, and on PC during Skype conversations.

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Sometimes in life, you’re thrown some pleasant surprises. At times these surprises force you to re-evaluate your rock solid opinions. As we approach the Christmas season, the lords of the internet and print have told us to prepare ourselves for the greatest software titles of the year. Gears of War2, Fallout 3, and LittleBigPlanet are just some of the titles we as gamers have all but been force fed from the marketing/information/hype buffet table to believe as being “must own” games. We plan our end of the year gaming budgets around, in part–based on what we’ve been told. Don’t get me wrong–these are great games, but these advertisement mega hogs aren’t the only discs worthy of being spun in your systems.

Pushing its way through these high quality, high hype games, is one of those surprises I mentioned earlier. It has forced me to take a second look at what I considered to be gaming’s best of the best for this year, and turned everything on its freaking head. It’s a little title by CyberConnect2 and Namco/Bandai called Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm, and, in my opinion, may very well be my Game of the Year. Yeah, I hear you laughing. But hear me out.

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SpiderMan is one of those properties that hasn’t had the best success quality wise in the videogame scene. Primarily because the most recent efforts have been tied to big budget summer movie releases (Spiderman 3 in particular), and developers were no doubt under the gun to bring the game out to capitalize on the hype generated by the movies. The result? Crap.

Enter developer ShabaGames, with their fresh approach at doing a SpiderMan project. SpiderMan: Web of Shadows isn’t connected to some hyped movie release, or some big television debut. Instead, the story is original, giving the developers more freedom in how to approach the project, and it shows. Web of Shadows is the best SpiderMan console game available, and one of the best comic book based games around.

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You’ve just opened a steel door leading toward the waiting tram. The hallway’s only source of light are a series of small fires caused by the chaos taking place. Shadows dance along the walls of the long hallway as if they were sentient beings, playing tricks with your eyes. Your mind is filled with strife and concern for how you’re going to get out of this situation alive. SLAM!! You’re grabbed by some sort of tentacle. The force of it’s grabbing blow knocks you to the floor, and it begins to savagely jerk you to some unknown grisly fate. You try to keep from slipping into a state of panic, but struggling seems to do little weaken the creature’s grasp. You’re barely able to hang on to your pulse rifle when…Well, I won’t spoil it.

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Indiana Jones was a fun game that my wife and I were easily able to play and enjoy together. It has an slick drop-in/drop-out mechanic that lends itself to easily allow for you to play single player while seamlessly adding a second person mid-game. There was no online support for this title, save achievements. I would highly recommend it as a fun family game or as a recreational title to spend a rainy afternoon with. This title was reviewed on Xbox 360, but is also available on Microsoft Windows, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Portable.

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Blue 22, Blue 22…Hike. Normally I would not even attempt to review a Madden game because of EA’s track record of rehashing the same game with minor details. This year is different though, not only in the gameplay but also in the online experience. So join me in the huddle and find out if this game is a breakaway like Micheal Turner as a starter or is as messed up as Vince Young’s mental state.

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