Jared Rea

I’m watching “Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense” through streaming Netflix on my Xbox 360. I remember a time where I was standing in Amoeba Records, hold the woefully overpriced DVD in my hands, wondering just how badly I required my life to be enriched by the live acts of David Byrne. Really, there shouldn’t be any question as to how awesome the New Xbox Experience is. It’s so awesome.

I was a bit disappointed by the Avatar options, but it seems as though Microsoft is already on the case and for free, at that. To the horror of “the core,” I really have no problem with paying for Avatar customization options and am actually looking forward to the upcoming Avatar store. What can I say, I love my virtual barbie dolls. I’m more excited, however, for when developers start offering up Avatar clothing for achievements, much like they already do now with gamerpics. 

The interesting part now is to see how, after reinventing their console, Microsoft keeps the NXE fresh even a year or so from now. Maybe that has something to do with the Primetime game functionality moving to next year, maybe not. It’s probably for the best though. I’d like for them to fix the whole, look-at-your-friends-list-and-the-entire-thing-crashes issue.

During the heyday of Bemani gaming at Sunnyvale Golfland, we played a variety of crummy games to pass the time between turns of Beatmania IIDX. There was Cruisn’ World which was later given the moniker “Tatsujin Racing.” A revival of the greatest arcade sports game ever, NBA Showtime and of course, the shady-ass redemption game, Flamin Finger.

What made Flamin Finger so endearing was that it cheated. Shamelessly, at that. The premise of the game is to guide through a touch-screen maze with your finger before time runs out. The only problem is that the closer you get to the end of the maze, the timer speeds up immensely, as evidenced on YouTube. Your reward was some ill-straight techno beats all up in your shit while the machine screamed at you.

Now you can experience the greatness that is Flamin Finger  for free on your iPhone with MazeFinger. It’s essentially the same thing, only it doesn’t cheat, which almost defeats the purpose. Don’t forget to place a piece of paper under your finger to decrease friction!

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Well, someone had to make the photoshop above. Expect something a bit more substantial once everything settles in. Now that this election cycle is over, I think I can finally get some rest.

We come to it at last, the great battle of our time. It is in men that we must now place our hope.