Oh, Little Big Planet!

First off, let me spazz a bit and say OMG OMG OMG I GOT A BETA FOR LBP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SRSLY!!
Now, let me compose myself and write a well educated review
Where do I begin?
I spent a good portion of my first hour playing having a cow over the cuteness of Sackboy in his array of clothing, including (but not limited to): bunny ears, mustaches, a pirate outfits and a 1700s-style wealthy-English collar. The amount of cute-ness in LBP is absurd, and it's not just cute in a Harvest Moon way, where only girls will squeal over it, my boyfriend was having far too good of a time dressing, and playing around with sackboy (no pun intended). The ability to personalize your little big planet is literally out of this world. There are plenty of things to make your character and the world you are playing in unique. The best feature is the Playstation eye; where LBP uses it so you can take pictures using it, and make stickers out of them. The possibilities are endless.
The replay value is outstanding, and I know it wont be something I will sell back once I have the full version. Each level is new and full of surprises (like jet-packs! Woo!). For an artist who loves puzzle games, I was not at all dissapointed, it was both challenging and visually stimulating. I would finish a level and think I hadn't missed a thing and find out I only completed 33%!!
Undoubtedly every time anyone plays LBP on theirs, or anyone elses playstation, it will look different. When I say everything is customizable, I mean it.
It was an extremely impressive beta, for being such a complex game. And multiplayer is a huge part of it. Some levels you will need another Sackperson to help you, and at other times you can just send odd screen shot-stickers to friends to use on their LBP.
So the bottom line for this beta is: A fascinating and unique experience that captivates both the mind and the imagination for use in unlimited ways.


I give it: 10 (I don't just hand out tens either....)

WoW, you can't escape it!

So considering I work at GameStop, games are really an inescapable part of my life. I played World of Warcraft (WoW) about a year ago and found my self bored at killing various kinds of felines, bears, and furry walking things. I mean, how many times can they re-name those annoying murlocks? Well once the hype of the whole thing settled down and I realized my druid wasn't a class that gets merit for power, I decided to save my self the monthly $15, and get a life.
Then it happened, more of my friends started getting the game and I found myself with nothing to do on a Saturday night unless I had sold my soul to a particular MMORPG. Finally, after running from it for a year, I have decided to give into this utter addiction, WoW.

The Fine Line Between Art and Porn

Women tend to recognize this line much better than men I have noticed. But regardless, there is a very common misconception out there. Sure we all recognize things like the David by Michelanglo as art, but in modern times not everyone is carving religious nude pieces. More commonly nudity in modern art involves tattoos and piercings to a certain degree. People tend to fail in realizing what is tacky nudity and what is artsy nudity. An example of an artist who draws girls generally topless, but intends all of his work to be art is Joe Pekar. Unfortunately a lot of his work is closer to porn because more people would rather see that, which I find pretty sad. He recently released a book called Strawberry which features a lot of beautiful pieces of art. Pin-up girls are another good example of art that tends to be received more like porn. I have always thought that feminine beauty was always the most stunning. Maybe the key is to be more open-minded about seeing naked figures.

WARNING: Sharing is not caring

Many of us underpaid college students cannot afford to buy every single CD or song their heart has ever desired. What's worse is that songs and albums bought on iTunes cannot be shared or even played on computers that aren't "authorized". These issues only fuel our passion for file sharing. But be warned, while downloading songs is not illegal- sharing them is. Some unfortunate people are finding this out the hard way: getting charged $10,000 for every shared song.
Check out the video here.

For those avid downloaders, you can turn off file sharing on most clients in the preferences. Also, make sure you unselect the option that says "search for music to share on hard drive".
Plus, be careful of getting bugs in your system from these clients. If you notice your computer is running slower than usual or you are experiencing problems, those might be a sign that it's time to say goodbye to these clients. Bit torrents are a much safer alternative and there are many free ware clients available for these little treasures. Of course the safest is no client at all, but what fun is that?