Sony Europe: Colossal Idiots Will Make PS3 A Success

While the Xbox 360 remains strong in North America and the United Kingdom and the Nintendo Wii continues to fly off store shelves the world over, Sony is hoping to stake its claim on Europe with the help of the world's largest demographic: grade A fucking morons.

Citing Nintendo's success with simpletons' infatuation with digital doppelgangers and gentle gaming, Sony Europe feels that Home, the new social playground where user created avatars wait around for hours until the opportunity to mime-rape the rare female avatar appears, is the ultimate lure to this elusive yet profitable buying base.

During a recent visit to the Robotronic Dynamite! offices, Home's European service manager, Dan Hill, said, "We've put together the ultimate user experience. You can buy, with real money, digital clothes licensed to feature name brands for your avatar!"

When asked if he felt Microsoft might have preempted Sony's attempt at reaching the casual gamer with its Avatars, Mr. Hill responded, "While Microsoft's Avatars are a nice attempt at luring soccer moms, nascar dads, senile octogenarians, and bachelor uncles into buy the 360, the fact remains that you can't take your avatar and do rad stuff like buy fake crap at fake stores to dress up your fake apartment! Sony knows what people need in these tough economic times; to waste money on useless shit that won't enrich their lives to any extent whatsoever!"

RD! put in a call to Mr. Fils-Aime of Nintendo to find out if he was at all concerned about Sony's aggressive push for mainstream relevance, but were unable to reach him as he had apparently eaten his phone.

Review: Professor Layton and the Curious Village

Grade: B-
Time Spent Playing: 13 hours


An hour or so into Layton I was prepared to write it off as a 5 dollar grocery store puzzle book, gussied up by a charming cast of characters and gorgeous aesthetic. Having now finished it, that's pretty much exactly what Professor Layton is.

That doesn't make it not fun, I just find the disconnect between the world your exploring and the puzzles you're solving in it to be unappetizing. While I should have been more interested in the carefree goings on of Layton and Luke, I was more focused on finding and solving the inventive and involving puzzles, often to the detriment of my investment in the story and characters. I find that to be a shame because within five minutes of turning the game on I was in love with the whole concept; as if Layton were some cherished cartoon from my childhood given new life on my DS. This is probably why I'm more interested in seeing the upcoming movie than I am playing the sequels.

Thinking about it now, it seems ridiculous that I'm finding such fault with marrying the two aspects of the game that I enjoy so much independently of each other, but I really do think the two don't compliment each other. I will probably give a sequel a try, but I really hope that they make the puzzles more context sensitive to what is actually going on in the story.