GLAG Review: Plants Vs. Zombies

This is the most addictive game since Peggle.

Friday night Stephanie and I gorged ourselves on sushi and then, in a nigiri induced coma, stumbled back to her house, curled up on the couch, and played Plants Vs. Zombies for four and a half hours.

FOUR AND A HALF HOURS.


If that's not a good review, then I don't know what is.

On-site Review: Playstation Move

Right, Kinect is totally THE THING right now (even Ellen is giving it away to her studio audience...not that we are jealous), but in flipping through my camera pictures I realized I totally forgot about that one above. It was taken at the Sony Move storefront marketing spot on Market Street in San Francisco, a couple of weeks ago. I'd walked by the two giant controllers (which by the way still look like a girl's best friend) that graced the doorway a couple of times but finally went in. Sadly, that picture was the result of my excursion.

Neither Renee nor I own a PS3. We're XBOX girls, mostly due to financial constraints, but also because no one has yet to have the brilliance to hire us to play video games all day which means we have to spend forty hours a week doing other stuff and a second console (or third in my case) would mean we'd probably forget to eat.

But, I figured it was there, I might as well give it a go. I was with honorary GLAG member Adam so we were excited to give the 2-player a shot. Especially since there were only two other people in there besides the bored looking promotion staff.

There was a reason there were only two people there.

The first thing we came up to was Little Big Planet. Yay! I've wanted to play this! Oh, never mind, its broken.

I get that free video games on Market Street in San Francisco might get used a little harshly and not be in the best shape, but it was a Thursday at noon and there was no one there to play it. Sure it probably gets a lot of use on the weekends when the tourists descend, but you've got four days to fix your keystone game which you have placed front and center as potential buyers enter. Not a good move. So we moved on.

The next set up was a basic shooter. Only it was so basic we felt like we had played it before. Target shooting with a western theme? Yup, they've already got that on the Wii. The art was almost identical, and when I play it on the Wii I don't feel like I'm waving my Hitatchi magic wand around in public.

Speaking of the wand...I was not impressed. Sure, it was tethered to the console with a cord that came a third of the way up the shaft (hee, hee) so you couldn't really get a feel for it, but even with the added weight, that giant-ass glowing ball made one end way heavier than the other. Also? It's a giant glowing ball. That is pretty damn distracting.

We moved on again to some racing game that didn't want to load, so we moved over to the Sony version of Wii Sports. This seemed potentially exciting since they added archery which included having to load your bow from your quiver on your back...like I said, "potentially exciting." Adam tried it first but after one shot it failed to recognize his movements to pull the arrow out of the quiver. The sensor was at my eye level so it was pretty high, but Adam is super tall so he tried bending his knees a bit. No luck. I tried, too. No luck. They two guys next to us tried. No luck there either.

So yeah, sorry Sony but we'll hold out until we can afford Kinect.

Halloween!

We may not be cosplayers, but we certainly love any excuse to dress up in costume. We also tend to commit to whatever person, character or theme we'll be embodying because what is the use of going half way? Accessories and props are key. This year we didn't have much time to DIY but that did not deter us.

Behold the Game Like A Girl Halloween Get Ups!

If you can't tell who I am, then you must have that *other* console. I have seriously wanted to dress up as Zoey since the very first time I played Left 4 Dead. A biologically proportioned female character who kicks ass, looks a hell of a lot like me, and whose outfit I already own half of? Sign me up.

But, here's the thing. I only figured out I was going as Zoey at 10am on Friday morning and I had to have the costume ready by 7:30pm the next night. Luckily, the shotgun and pistol we're already in the costume closet (yes, it takes up both a bureau and a steamer trunk, too) and the jeans and converse are petty much my standard M.O. I managed to pick up the red jacket for 12 bucks and modded it with a new zipper and white accents Saturday afternoon. I also threw together a pretty awesome looking health pack (if I do say so myself) mostly out cannibalized old projects.Yay, me. Also, this is perhaps the forth utility belt I've created, but the first out of duct tape in thirty minutes. When it comes to costumes duct tape is the way to go.

Unless of course you are Renee.

For those not familiar with 1960's B movie classics, that is a spot on replica of one of Jane Fonda's costumes in Barbarella. This is the second incarnation of the costume. A few years ago, Renee cut each of those pieces from a piece of sheet metal, sanded them down, painted them, and hammered holes into them so she could connect each with a soldered jump ring. That my friends is dedication to your craft.

I'd only seen this costume on a dress form, where it had been taunting me since we met so I begged Renee to don it again this year. Unsurprisingly, she totally rocked it. She even dyed her hair to boot.

I tried to convince Renee to be the Witch to my Zoey, but there is enough creepy fan art on the interwebs about those two characters that its probably best we not add fuel to the fire. Instead, that lurking figure in the background is Adam (my husband and the honorary third member of GLAG) who put together a pretty convincing Smoker by modding a cheap mask with insulating foam and creating a convincingly creepy (and stinky) tongue out of nylons and moss. Like I said, props - particularly interactive props - are key.

So, what was everyone else? Leave your pics and links in the comments!