Hey gang, this column was meant to run last Friday, but a funny thing happened. Sci Fi Observer stopped updating. We’re on what people call “permanent hiatus.” It is always sad to see a good blog go before its time, but before we turn off the lights, let us share in one last Fluff Film Friday.

Did you all have a good ID4? We at the Fluff Compound sure did. While we didn’t get to watch any firework displays, we did make a point of watching the fluffest celebration of independence ever committed to film. Naturally, I am referring to the Ewok celebration of Yubnub.

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Having conquered the search engine, attacked e-mailing and swallowed internet video whole, Google is now making it’s own MMO or MUD or MOG or whatever you call the Massively Multiplayer Online games.

You’ve probably already heard about Lively somewhere on the web, but is it any good? Let’s find out…
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Gotta say, I’m impressed with the efforts to sell Hellboy to the public.

Sure, this was an uphill battle when the first movie came out – who other than comic book fans would take an action hero named Hellboy seriously? – but the film was a surprising success and with director Guillermo Del Toro’s subsequent cinematic success, a sequel was inevitable.

Now the studio is pulling out all the stops to promote Hellboy II in some surprising places.
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It may rank 6,141 in Amazon’s list of best-selling video games, but Beyond Good and Evil shows up on everyone’s list of best games never played - for good reason.

It’s no secret that I loved this game, so I was thrilled when I saw the teaser for part two and glad to see it in Kotaku’s Game Club (like Oprah’s book club, but with fewer little pieces).

Rather than just gushing about my appreciation for the game, I thought I’d mention why people are so excited by the prospect of a sequel. Continue Reading »

While I was in Japan I saw demos of this freaky-ass game that I know nothing about. Good or bad, I have to play it.

To be honest, I never heard of any previous games in the Persona series, but with characters this cool and an anime this strange, Persona4 has got to be interesting.

Good news is, this won’t be a Japan-only title, as there’s already an official English site and according to the trailer, it could be out by December 9 in the U.S.

To be clear, lead poisoning is a a serious subject, and even if media coverage can occasionally cause panic.

That said, there’s something unintentionally ironic about Nintendo recalling Super Smash Bros. Brawl lapel pins because they could be dangerous “if ingested.”

They are pins. Little metal objects with sharp pointy ends. I don’t care what they are made out of, they are dangerous if ingested. I guess, conceivably, the paint could some how come off the plastic-coated metal-mounted pins, but still…

Kids – if Nintendo sends you non-toxic replacement pins, do not stick them in your mouth either.

With Wall•e hitting theaters this week, it seems like the perfect opportunity to address the varied robots of the Pixar film. Although it may seem against the grain of the Killer Robots series to discuss a popular contemporary robot, there is one aspect of the feature that could be easily overlooked – the Buy n Large Corporation.
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With news of another stabbing, it seems some are asking if Akihabara is as safe as it used to be. Having visited Electric Town several times over the past few weeks – I never felt safer.

Nationwide, the rising crime rate is causing some concern in Japan, but it is still fairly low compared to the rest of the world. Looking at the murder rates of various countries, the UN found Japan ranked 60 out of 62 countries, where as the U.S. had the 24th highest murder rate – higher than every G8 country except for Russia. While there are fears crime in the U.S. could get worse, are things really so dangerous in Japan?
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This movie was everything that was promised. I’m not ready to call it the best sci-fi movie of the year (my money’s still on Iron Man for that one) but Wall•e’s pretty dang slick. The G-rated family film also serves as a great unintentional sequel for Mike Judge’s R-rated bawdy satire Idiocracy. Whereas the earlier film’s message was “stay in school,” this film carries the message of “protect the environment.” As much as the audience seemed to love the message, I couldn’t help but notice how many cups, food boxes, napkins, wrappers and popcorn buckets were left behind in the theater…

Because we’re all about sci-fi and robots, there will be more on Wall•e this weekend.

Hey, do you guys remember when the comic books killed off Superman in the 90s? And it was this big freaking deal, with people and even newspapers treating it like it was actual news and not just a stunt to sell comic books? And then remember how he came back to life with a mullet? And it was kinda cool because in the 90s a mullet of steel sorta made sense? Well, Bruce Timm and Warner Animation made that story into a movie. Continue Reading »