World of Warcraft turns 5-years-old today. Back on November 23, 2004, a year before the current generation of video game systems even began (with the launch of the Xbox 360), Blizzard released the massively multi-player online game at a time when massively multi-player online games were still largely the haunt of hardcore gamers, people with fast Internet connections who were willing to pay $15 per month for access to a game that they already bought. Who can forget the message board threads: Why do I have to pay for a game that I already paid for at the store? How do you beat the game? What happens if and when I stop playing?

You won’t stop playing. Five years in, Blizzard has 11.5 million (as of December, 2008) subscribers all over the world. (Note: Not every region of the world has a pay-per-month regime. You pay by the hour in China, for example.) In these five years, the game has gone from plucky upstart, going up against other, well-established MMOGs, to the undisputed number one such game. Now, that may not necessarily be a good thing, but it’s hard to see someone knocking World of Warcraft off its perch. Well, someone other than World of Warcraft II.

I’m a veteran of vanilla WoW, but only just. I bought the game in September, 2006; The Burning Crusade came out a few months later. I bought the game because I was roped into some consulting session for a rather big company. “Hey, you’re young. Play WoW and Second Life and tell us how we can better reach young people through them.”

I don’t know if the company got what it wanted (surely it didn’t!), but it certainly set me on my current path of, oh, you know, playing the game for at least three to four hours per night on most nights of the week.

It’s pretty funny. When the game launched in 2004, I was a freshman in college, and one of my two roommates was all about the game. We’re talking stay-up-until-4am-every-night-of-the-week-to-play-it. I had no idea what the game was about, but I distinctly remember the day he walked into the dorm room with a box from Amazon: “Gentlemen, it’s here.” (Actually, knowing the kid, it was probably more along the lines of, “Yes, it’s here! Fucking A~!” Memory fades, I’m afraid.) I’m like, so what? Can’t you see we’re playing Halo 2? (Halo 2 was very big that year. I was a good sniper. It was the last time I played a multi-player game with any conviction.) I’d say we teased my roommate about his “addiction,” but I had no idea what the game was about. I had never played any of the other Warcraft games, nor Diablo. Again, I was not, and still am not, a PC gamer, so the entire Blizzard catalogue played no role in my life.

The point is, the game’s launch came and went, but my only experience with it was waking up at 3:00AM because my roommate yelled, “Yes! I can buy a mount now!”

Then September of 2006 rolls around, and I’m forced to buy the game for that aforementioned consulting session. I still had no interest in the game, and was only creating an account as part of my job. (Well, “job” only in the loosest sense of the word, getting paid to try to help a huge company better tap into the “young people” market.) So walk back to my room from the local Best Buy (I wasn’t boycotting it back then. You can listen to my ordeal as told on the podcast here.), and install it on my iMac. I create an account, and create my first character. It was an Undead Warrior named Rocktober—Undead because I thought they looked (and still look) the best, and Warrior because, well, Warrior is the noob class, right? “Warrior? I bet you get a sword and stuff. Count me in.”

I still have that character to this day.

I then set aside Rocktober, and created a Night Elf Warrior on a different server so I could play with a friend of mine. (I had casually mentioned that I was playing WoW now, and he flipped out. “Oh, dude, join my server and I’ll hook you up.”) I named the Nelf Warrior Zardoz, in honor of that godawful Sean Connery moviethat I had just seen in a movie class I was forced to take. (We all needed an “art” class, so to speak, and watching and critiquing movies was considered “art.” Fair enough.) I was able to get Zardoz all the way up to level 58—it was harder to level in those days—before growing bored of the game. The Burning Crusade was installed somewhere around this time.

A year went by without me really playing the game. Note that I was still paying for the game, just not playing it. I don’t know, I guess I never bothered to cancel my subscription. Maybe it was too much of a hassle, or maybe I didn’t notice such a small amount of money leaving my bank account every month. The point is, I’ve been paying my $15 per month non-stop since September, 2006.

I’m probably never going to stop paying, either.

So here’s to another five years (well, three years in my case) of unpredictable PUGs, guilds joined but not really participated in, Auctioneer-assisted money-making, and lost sleep. So much lost sleep.

This is the worst time to be a gamer. Yeah, it’s great that so many good games have come out recently (take your pick from New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Modern Warfare 2, Assassin’s Creed II, Left 4 Dead 2, etc.), but it’s pretty difficult to shell out $60+ every other day in the span of two weeks.

This list may help. It’s a bunch of older Xbox 360 games for up to 75 percent off the regular price. Granted, I don’t exactly see Modern Warfare 2 or Left 4 Dead 2, but I do spy veritable hits like GTA IV and Guitar Hero World Tour and Lego Batman and TNA Impact.

I’ve listed TNA Impact primarily as a joke, because as we all know, nobody watches TNA. It’s a shame since so many of those wrestlers (Kurt Angle, AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels, Nigel McGuinness, etc.) are pretty darn good.

The L and R buttons flash, there are a couple of LEDs behind the speakers, and the four epilepsy invoking LEDs on the back flash in response to the sound coming out of the thing. Here’s a breakdown of how he did it, if you’re curious.

[Via Ubergizmo]

The thing is, I would probably ruin you in Counter-Strike or Team Fortress 2. In fact, it seems to me that every time I read about a PC team going up against a console team in the same game, the console team gets manhandled. Why is that? Well, probably because a mouse and keyboard is a better way of controlling a first-person shooter. You know it, I know it, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.

Here’s the thing: the gaming world isn’t governed by players and their preferences. It’s a business, subject to market forces, development pressures, and all that sort of thing. Remember when Halo was going to be a Mac exclusive? That didn’t happen for a reason: because there was more money to be made in launching it with a new console. Was it a better or worse game for it? I don’t know, I’m not a freaking oracle. And that’s not the point of this post anyway.

Look, making a big game is a nightmare. A studio needs to get a return on a huge investment, and where are the sales? In the piracy-ridden, heterogenous PC market, where you have to cater to every possible hardware configuration? No, but the game will probably be at its best on a high-end PC, so you kind of want to hit that anyway. But the main thing is to get a game onto the PS3 and 360 in as playable a form as possible. That way you have a guaranteed base of 40 or 50 million units that will all run it perfectly and work together just the way they’re designed to. Maybe they won’t have a mouse, but so what?

So you get AAA FPS titles like Modern Warfare 2 on a console, where people can play the game just fine against each other and enjoy the full experience — with a dual shock. Is the PC version the “definitive” version of the game? With MW2 I would suggest not, but with others it may be the case (GTA4 for instance). To make a blanket statement on this would be to commit a pretty foolish error. At the same time, don’t take someone to task for saying that Borderlands is better on the PC. I mean, what? It is!

Besides, I don’t think it’s an insult against console gamers or their games to say that a mouse and keyboard is the better control method. It’s like saying a wheel controller with pedals is a better controller for racing games. It just is! It doesn’t mean that everyone sucks without one, or that games that don’t support wheels are garbage. It’s just presenting an ideal. Can there be great FPSes on consoles? Sure! But let’s be honest about it and qualify that by saying that there’s auto-aim, the enemies shoot slower, and they generally have a more horizontally-orientated environment. It just makes it a better game on the console. They switch it up for the PC version, if they make one; if I can get headshots 90% of the time in Gears on PC, versus 10% on console, they better damn sure make it so that doesn’t break the game.

The console versus PC debate, which is what the mouse vs. controller thing is really about, ends up being a kind of silly one. There are fantastic games on both platforms, and some just work better on one or the other. Platformers are best with a specific controller, joystick sensitivity, and button layout. Real-time strategy demands a level of versatility, precision, and resolution that’s only available on PCs. And if we’re honest, so do FPSes in their ideal format. But that’s not always possible; the convenience and standard hardware of consoles often means a better deal for developers, and sometimes a better game for the consumer.

I may never be good at GoldenEye, but I could never say that game sucked. So let’s stop being such prideful bastards about our games and just agree to say “whatever works for you.”

Super Mario Bros. Wii doesn’t come out here in North America for another five days, but, for whatever reason, it comes out in Australia in two days! That explains why you can find the world’s first review (nearest I can tell) on IGN Australia. The Web site gave the game a 9.2 (I swear, these decimal point reviews are 100 percent absurd), but I think it’s safe to conclude that the game is, indeed, fun, which is really all you can ask for.

As is customary from my “oh here’s a review!” posts, I’ll merely highlight the nut graph, which is the wrong phrase to use here but whatever, but I’ll also encourage you to read the whole thing. It’s only two pages (you’ll recall that IGN’s GTA IV review was seven pages long) so get to it.

Whether or not this is the best Mario game to date is purely a matter of personal tastes; it’s certainly the most humble on outward appearances. The red game case – a bold and loud statement of fun – is the first indicator that there’s something special under the hood in this one. Still sorting the men from the boys after 20 years, Mario and Luigi’s new adventure is not important because it’s the continuation of a franchise we know and love – rather, it’s because New Super Mario Bros. Wii demonstrates one more time why Nintendo are masters of the all-ages gaming market; relevant and refreshing but at all times reverent and above all, incredible fun.

I can only add that I played the game for, oh, 15 minutes about a month ago, and it struck like Smash Bros does: it’s fun on its own merits, yes, but the more people you play with, the better.

Or, simply, if you own a Wii, you’ll probably want this under your Christmas tree (or whatever) this year.

Come back with me to the turn of the century, circa 1996. Your humble narrator was working for campus police at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, creating FileMaker databases for their police reports. It wasn’t uncommon then to see DOS machines sitting beside Windows 95 machines and the web was a primitive and strange thing. There were only two browsers of note, Netscape and Internet Explorer, and firing either up was neither particularly comfortable or interesting. But, hidden deep behind Netscape’s bland carapace, was Mozilla. When you typed “about:mozilla” in the Netscape address bar, for example, you got:

Pretty badass stuff, especially when most websites were dedicated to kittens and burgeoning corporate identity. I was hooked instantly. This was the browser for me and it slowly became the browser for everyone with self-respect and a brain.

Fast forward to 2004: Mozilla and Netscape were on the rocks and it looked like the browser wars had been won. IE was the victor. In order to combat bloat and “feature creep,” however, a ragtag team of coders led by Dave Hyatt and Blake Ross built something they called “Phoenix,” then “Firebird,” then, on November 9, 2004, Firefox 1.0 was born. This turned into the Mozilla suite – Firefox and Thunderbird – were born.

On this, the fifth anniversary of that momentous occasion, let’s all tip out a little Jolt for Netscape and toast to the future of Firefox, the best browser in the world. Best of all, the book of Mozilla is still being written and any time you type ‘about:mozilla’ into Firefox you get a red screen and a potent reminder of the early days of the Internet.

Happy birthday, Firefox.

But am I the only one that have dismissed all these complaints because of Infinity Ward’s track record? Look at the history here, the Call of Duty franchise is among the very best FPS ever made and Infinity Ward was behind every major PC and console release. The Call of Duty games have never let me down in the past, and I doubt this one will be any different.

Do you remember the original Call of Duty? It was epic. Finally you were’t alone on the battlefield, instead fighting alongside fellow solders. You played as a solder from the American, British, and Soviet armies. The American campaign was almost a take on the Band of Brothers’s HBO mini-series. But it was the Soviet level where you had to defend the multistory apartment building from all angles that defined the game. It has to be one of the hardest and most complex FPS levels of all time.

Not only did Infinity Ward use the Quake III engine to give the game great graphics, but the story was deep and involved. I expect no less from Modern Warfare 2.

Infinity Ward did the same thing with Call of Duty 2 by allowing you to play as four different solders in different battle campaigns. But it was the multiplayer in the second chapter that was stunning. The maps where huge and could support up to 64 players. It’s still a favorite at LAN parties I attend although everyone eventually gravitates to the sniper rifle and the room falls silent for hours as we all sneak around.

It’s Call of Duty 3 that takes a slightly different look. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a good game, but it wasn’t nearly as grand as the previous two games. Infinity Ward didn’t develop this game, another branch of Activision did, Treyarch. COD3 was simply just another WWII FPS and, feel free to argue with me, not worthy of the COD name with game play that boarded on tedious and boring.

But the Infinity Ward release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare by far made up for COD3. I don’t think I need to go into just how awesome the first player and multiplayer modes are on this game. You probably already know as everyone has played it. It overtook Halo 3 as the most played Xbox 360 online game of all time and became a favorite of PC gamers because it’s so easy to play pirated versions online.

Its success is the reason Infinity Ward and Activision is getting so much flack over its sequel. All die-hard players want is updated graphics, new maps, and slightly different weapons. I don’t blame them, they don’t want their favorite game to change dramatically. I was the same way with the Half Life mod, Day of Defeat.

Infinity Ward has different plans though. From what everyone can gather, this release is going to be different from the previous game. Dedicated servers aren’t going to be available, which doesn’t sit well with online gamer clans and people hoping to play on cracked servers like in the original. It just so happens that these dedicated gamers are vocal online and so causal gamers have been carry a picket line fence too even though they probably won’t notice a difference in game play.

Yet none of the complaints seems to bother me although I consider myself on the edge of being one of those dedicated gamer. I really think it’s because I enjoyed the hell out of each of Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty releases too. Every single one of them is on my top 10 list of best video games of all time. Modern Warfare 2 might very well be a disgrace to online PC gaming, but I’ll wait the couple of weeks and decide that myself before. Infinity Ward has earned that trust.

It’s easy to jump onto an Internet bandwagon, but when you really think about it, Modern Warfare 2 is just another stupid video game. If you boycott it because it doesn’t support 24v24 multiplayer or clans, the game will still go onto sell a bajillion copies and you’ll miss out on all the fun because you’re carrying the banner of some random gamers’ forum. I guess everyone needs to fight for a cause sometimes, but I’d be damn to let it get in the way of me playing what could be a great game.

Let me preface this by saying that I could be the worst GTA player on Planet Earth. I don’t know if my thumbs just can’t twiddle like they used to when I was a spry 16-year-old. I don’t know if the sandbox “oh my god everything is happening all at once~!” style of gameplay is exacting its revenge on me for some previous offense I committed in a past life. I simply don’t know what’s up. The bottom line is: I completely stink on ice when it comes to all things GTA.

And yet I still had a very fine time playing The Ballad of Gay Tony. Well, “very fine time” inasmuch as I can experience the emotion known as “joy” anymore.

The tale of the tape: when you go to the store and buy Episodes From Liberty City, you’re buying a stand-alone (that is, you don’t need to have GTA IV for it to work), $40 disc for your Xbox 360 that contains both The Ballad of Gay Tony and the previously released The Lost and Damned. Since biker culture doesn’t appeal to me in the least I skipped out on buying The Lost and Damned, so hooray for me that I get both DLCs on the one disc.

But only The Ballad of Gay Tony concerns us right now. If, for whatever reason, you don’t want to buy the retail copy of Episodes From Liberty City know that you can download it from Xbox Live, like any other DLC, provided you already have GTA IV.

Hopefully that clears up any misconceptions you may have.

Moving on.

You play as Luís Lopez, a thuggish but well-meaning Dominican gentlemen with a sharp haircut who’s the business partner (read: hired goon) of Gay Tony. Gay Tony runs Liberty City’s nightlife, which means Luís has to deal with all of the associated nonsense. You know, the mob loans Tony some money for a club and now wants to kill everyone he holds dear because he’s a little late in his payments. So you going around GTA-ing the city in order to protect Tony from enemies that are largely of his own creation. Tragedy.

Being that it’s a GTA game, I’m going to assume that you’re familiar with the basic mechanics. Run and drive about, shoot and blow up some stuff, watch tremendously written and directed cutscene, etc. Nothing out of the ordinary, but you do wonder how long Rockstar can keep selling us the same concept. In that sense, if you’ve played, say, Vice City for the PS2 then you’ve played The Ballad of Gay Tony.

Then again, EA keeps pumping out Madden after Madden, and sales there don’t seem to be suffering. Plus, Rockstar releases GTA games so infrequently that maybe my initial concern, that people could tire of the formula, may be overstated. Rockstar hasn’t Guitar Hero‘d the series quite yet.

The overall atmosphere is the biggest change to the game, so much so that you might even consider a character unto itself. If the original GTA IV was too serious (which it was), then The Ballad can be seen as an appeal to the PS2 era’s better angels. It’s fun again. The game still oozes violence, and you still confront adult subject matter (best not to play the game with children about), but the mere fact that you conclude a mission by parachuting off one of Liberty City’s skyscrapers speaks volumes.

Or didn’t you notice the name of the game is The Ballad of Gay Tony?

You’re also knee-deep in the city’s club culture, which is to say you’re knee-deep in one of the circles of hell, the fun one with coke and progressive house music. You walk into a club in the game and it’s just like walking into one of those Meat Packing District hellholes in New York City: it’s dank, there’s guidos everywhere (no disrespect, but come on, cut it out with the wife beaters and hair gel already), the DJ is playing a song you yourself downloaded from Beatport that very week, and the women, despite the fact that it’s 30 degrees outside, are covered up in enough cloth to fill a thimble. Not that I mind, but to relay a Louis CK story I heard some time ago, you just want to go up to these girls and take them home to their parents, and explain to them that there’s more to life than popping bottles with deadbeats in the “VIP section” of a club, then doing the walk of shame at 7am the next morning. Go to night school, clean yourself up, do something with your life for God’s sake!

The mere fact that I was able to work a Louis CK reference into this post pleases me greatly.

The song selection gets many, many stars, and that’s something fierce considering I only listen to three stations in the game: Integrity, Beats 102.7, and Electro-choc. Integrity is still the most entertaining station in the game, Beats has no shame in playing “Arab Money” (thank you, Rockstar) every 10 minutes, and Deadmau5 himself would do well to work the “Electro-choc” playlist into his next set. (As I write this, I’m listening to a Deadmau5 live set from the Amsterdam Dance Event where he mixes in the Zelda overworld song.)

“Pjanoo,” the song featured in the trailer, is nowhere to be found in the game. Sad clowns, all of us.

I dabbled in the multi-player, but only just. It’s largely the same—mayhem everywhere, always—but there are new weapons, parachutes, Halo-like kill streaks, and so on.

Rockstar has improved the replay mission feature. If you fail a mission, and I’m pretty sure I failed all of ‘em at least once, you’re sent a text message that gives you the option to replay said mission. This time, however, many of the missions are broken into segments, and each segment serves as a checkpoint for any subsequent replays. For example, in one multi-part mission you have to go around and blow up various items (a construction crane, a subway train, and a plane, to be exact). So if you succeed in blowing up the crane but then fail in your attempt to blow up the subway, you resume the mission from right after blowing up the crane; you don’t have to start the mission all the way from Step One.

Such a time saver, believe me.

You’re also given the option to upload your mission score (the game ranks how well you complete missions this time around, taking into account time taken and damage received) to the Rockstar Social Club. I’d be lying if I said I had any real idea what the Rockstar Social Club is, but I’m sure it’s swell.

OK, this is already twice as long as I originally intended for it to be, so I’ll finish with this: The Ballad of Gay Tony concludes the GTA IV saga quite nicely, finally bringing some levity to a series that desperately needed it.

Oh, and Ron Bennington lends his voice to the game. That’s a Good Thing.

That’s right, I’m going to be that guy since CrunchGear is maybe one notch above a random message board. As I suspected, Ron from Ron and Fez, is in Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony. (Apparently East Side Dave is in another upcoming Rockstar game. Let’s speculate which one!) His voice is in the game (continuing the trend of XM 202 guys being in the GTA games), and I’m going to spend my evening tonight trying to find it. The sad part is that I’m not even lying. I literally have nothing better to do with my time.

I’m writing this around noon ET, and Lazlow, one of the big shots at Rockstar, and for whom I’d burn my house down for the chance to interview, is on Ron and Fez on Sirius XM telling crazy stories about Oklahoma, and about how he hired a homeless dude to be in the game. One of the guys on the streets of New York who bang on buckets and whatnot.

Is this news? Only in the loosest sense of the word. Hopefully R&F fans will get a kick out of it.

Other news nuggets Lazlow dropped:

• The PC version of Episodes from Liberty City doesn’t have a release date. Actually, let me rephrase that: there’s no word on any possible PC version of the game, with Lazlow citing PC piracy as a possible reason for the delay. In short: don’t expect a PC version any time soon.

• Lazlow said that using big name voice talent (Sam Jackson in San Andreas, for example) isn’t necessarily the way to go, since they’re not necessarily draws. What draws people to games like GTA is the game world, the game experience. No one is saying, “Hey, Sam Jackson is in that game, I’m going to buy it now!” Doesn’t happen.

That’s about it. Enjoy your day~!

Here are some of the topics from today’s podcast…

• Google Maps Navigation
• Verizon Droid
• Is Rock and Roll dead?
• The future of ad-supported/sponsored content

LISTEN: Show Link | RSS Feed | iTunes Link

Good news, everyone. (I hope people understand that reference.) Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City comes out tomorrow, and to help grease the wheels a little bit, this weekend will be a free-play weekend on Xbox Live for GTA IV. That is, if you have GTA IV but don’t subscribe to Xbox Live Gold, you’ll be able to play online multiplayer this weekend.

The deal goes from Friday to Sunday, and works for all the various GTA IV releases (The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony).

A couple of Rockstar people will be playing all night Saturday night, and their Gamertags are GwRockstar1 through GwRockstar16. Presumably there will be much trash talking and exploding cars.

Also, on Sunday, from 1pm to 3pm ET, you’ll be able to play with Henry Santos Jeter, who’s a singer in the band Aventura. So that’s neat, a successful musician taking time out of his day to run rampant throughout Liberty City with y’all.

We have another early entry into the wonderful world of leaked Black Friday ads with Sears opening at 4:00 AM on Friday morning and offering a pretty enticing list of door busters (available until noon) and other sale items to satisfy the rabid consumer in everyone.

Products include the following (door busters are marked with an asterisk):

Digital Cameras

Canon 980IS 12.1MP Digital Camera – $279.99

Canon Powershot SD780 IS 12.1MP Digital Camera – $179.99

Canon Rebelx XS Digital SLR Camera & Canon EF 75-300MM Telephoto Zoom Lens – $669.98

Disney Pix Micro Digital Cameras Designed For Just For Kids – $9.99 *

Fuji J29 10MP 3X Zoom 2.7″ LCD Digital Camera Bundle – $89.99 *

GE A1250 Digital Camera #0387779 – $69.99 *

Hi Pro Camera Kits #0354381/80 – 50% Off *

Jazz T20 4X Digtal Zoom 1.5″ LCD Camcorder #0339539/39540 – $19.99 *

Jazz T55 Camcorder #0339538 – $49.99 *

Kodak CD80 10.2MP, #x Zoom Digital Camera 2.4″ LCD 2GB Card And Case – $79.99 *

Kodak M1063 10.3MP Digital Camera – $89.99

Nikon Coolpix 12MP Digital Camera – $149.99

Nikon COOLPIX L20 Digital Camera – $99.99 *

Olmpus FE-4000 12MP Digital Camera – $99.99

Samsung C10 SD 1200 Digital Zoom 10X Optical Zoom 2.7″ LCD Camcorder – $149.99 *

Samsung Compact Full HD Camcorder – $399.99

Samsung SL40 12.2MP Digital Camera – $79.99

Sony 4GB Camcorder – $249.99

Sony 60GB Hard Disk Drive Camcorder – $299.99

Sony Cyber-Shot 10.1MP Digital Camera – $99.99

Sony Cyper-Shot 10.1MP Digital Camera – $249.99

Digital Media Cards

Sandisk 2GB SD Card – $5.99

SanDisk 4GB Memory Cards Or Flash Drive – $8.99 *

Sandisk 8GB SDHC Card – $14.99

Sony 2GB Memory Stick PRO Due – $12.99

DVD Players

Curtis DVD Player AR – $17.99 *

GPX 8″ Portabe DVD Player PD808BU – $79.99

GPX DVD/CD Boom Box 7″ LCD Display #5710084/BD707B – $99.99 *

Magnavox DVD Player With VCR #5757168/DV225MG9 AR – $49.99 *

Samsung Blu-ray Disc Player BD-P1600-A – $149.99

Sony Blu-ray Disc Player BDPS360 – $149.99

Sony DVD Player DVP-SR200P – $34.99

Sylvania 7″ Portable DVD Player #5757149/SDVD7015-BLUE AR – $49.99 *

Electronics

AT&T DECT 6.0 Cordless Phone System w/4 Handsets – $59.99

Coby 7″ Digital Photo Frame – $29.99 *

Coby 8″ Digital Frame – $49.99

iHome Portable iPod/MP3 Speaker System – $9.99

Karaoke CP398 – $29.99

Kodak 7″ Digital Frame – $49.99

Pandigital 10″ Digital Photo Frame – $69.99 *

Sony E10 Ear Buds Headphones – $4.99

Sony Wireless Headphones – $29.99

GPS Systems

Garmin Nuvi 205 GPS – $89.99 *

Magellan RoadMate 1220 GPS – $89.99

Magellan RoadMate 1440 GPS – $119.99 *

TomTom One 130 GPS – $79.99

TomTom XL325S – $99.99

Home Theater

Panasonic Blu-Ray Home Theater System #5798529/SC-BT200 – $399.99 *

RCA 5.1 Channel 250 Watt Home Theater System RTD317 – $99.99

Samsung 5.1 Channel 1000 Watt Single Disc DVD Home Theater System #5798659/HT-Z320 – $197.99 *

Samsung Blu-ray Home Theater System HT-BD1250 – $397.99

Sony Bravia 5.1 Channel 1000 Watt Integrated Home Theater System DAV-HDX589 – $329.99

MP3 Players

GPX 4GB MP3/4 Player – $32.99

iH4 iHome Alarm Clock For iPod #5792408/18 – $29.99 *

Mach Speed MP3 Player #5782229 – $24.99 *

RCA 1GB Sport MP3 Player #5731060 – $13.99 *

Televisions

AOC 32″ Full HD LDC TV – $379.99

Audiovox Under Cabinet Kitchen 7″ LCD DVD Clock Radio – $179.99

Eviant 7″ Hand Held TV – $89.99

LG 55″ LCD HDTV 55LH40 – $1499.99

Panasonic 42″ Class Plasma HDTV #5775529/TC-P42S1 – $649.99 *

Panasonic 54″ Plasma HDTV TC-P54G10 – $1499.99

Proscan 40″ Class LCD HDTV #5771379/40LC45Q – $539.99 *

Samsung 22″ Class LCD HDTV #5772015/LN22B350 – $249.99 *

Samsung 40″ Class 1080p LCD HDTV #5771409/LN40B500 – $599.99 *

Samsung 40″ LED HDTV UN40B6000 – $1399.99

Samsung 42″ Plasma HDTV PN42B400 – $549.99

Samsung 46″ 1080P Class LCD HDTV #5771419/LN46B500 – $899.99 *

Samsung 46″ Class LCD HDTV #5771079/LN46B650 – $1309.99 *

Samsung 46″ LED HDTV UN46B6000 – $1599.99

Samsung 50″ Class Plasma HDTV #5775129/PN50B430 – $699.99 *

Samsung 50″ Plasma HDTV PN50B530 – $899.99

Samsung 55″ LED HDTV UN55B6000 – $2469.99

Sharp 19″ Class LCD HDTV #5772149/LC19SB27UT – $179.99 *

Sony 32″ Class LCD HDTV #5771459/KDL-32L504 – $379.99 *

Sony 40″ Class LCD HDTV #5771439/KDL40S504 – $664.99 *

Sony 46″ Class LCD HDTV #5771449/KDL-46S504 – $854.99 *

Sony 46″ LCD HDTV KDL46V5100 – $1239.99

Sony 52″ LCD HDTV KDL52V5100 – $1599.99

Toshiba 40″ 1080P Class LCD HDTV #5771438/40RV525U/R – $589.99 *

VIZIO 32″ ECO HDTV VO320E – $349.99

Zenith 42″ Class Plasma HDTV #5775849/Z42PO2 – $499.99 *

Video Games

2-Pack Wii or DS Games – $14.99 *

2-Pack Xbox-360 Games or PS3 Games – $24.99 *

3-Pack PS2 Games – $9.99 *

Biggest Loser (Wii) – $29.99

Facebreak (Xbox 360) – $14.99

Guitar Hero World Tour For PS2, Xbox 360, Wii, PS3 – $49.99 *

Halo ODST (Xbox 360) – $39.99

Left 4 Dead (Xbox 360) – $39.99

Nerf Racing Wheel Wii – $9.99

Nintendo DS Games – $19.99 *

Nintendo DS Games – $29.99 *

Nintendo Wii w/Nerf Racing Wheel – $199.99

Playstation 3 120GB – $299.99

PS3 Blu-Ray Remote – $24.99

TNA Impact (PS3) – $14.99

Various Video Games – $14.99 or Under

Xbox 360 Elite Bundle – $299.99

Xbox Live 12 Month Gold Card – $49.99

Check out the entire list and ad scan over at BlackFriday.info.

More Black Friday deals…

Here are some of the topics from today’s podcast…

• Barnes & Noble’s “Nook” e-book reader
• New Apple products
• Verizon’s Droid initiative
• Eee Keyboard PC’s new touchpad

LISTEN: Show Link | RSS Feed | iTunes Link

Not that any of you noticed, but I’ve been AFK for the past few days, so I’ve totally missed out on all the Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony videos and screenshots that have hit my inbox. I’m fixing that right now.

As the very first trailer alluded to, you’ll be able to use parachutes in multi-player. (Thank God it’s not weather balloons!) Other multi-player highlights include:

• The use of tanks and helicopters

• A bunch of new weapons with which to kill-streak your friends until they log off in utter frustration

Given that I played GTA IV’s multi-player for all of 10 minutes (not because it was bad, but I’m just more of a single-player gamer; I even prefer to solo in WoW!) I really can’t speak to these additions. Maybe if I were more social?

Moving on, this here’s another video that highlights the game’s whole nightclub/nightlife/celebrity atmosphere. That, for the record, is why I wasn’t so keen on the first GTA IV expansion. Motorcycles and whatnot just aren’t my scene, whereas I have no problem with listening to “Pjanoo” and other, similar songs over and over again.

That’s about it for Ballad news. In other Rockstar news, however, they just put a bunch of their older games in the PSN Store for all of you PSP Go owners. Games to be newly found there include Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition and Manhunt 2.

I think that ties up all the loose ends. The lesson is, never leave the house again.

Here are some of the topics from today’s podcast…

• Devin hates Apple’s new iFrame video format
• Barnes and Noble’s impending e-book reader
• Android is everywhere — at CTIA, at CEATAC — everywhere!
• Rebirth of Polaroid
• The Motorola Cliq
• An uncomfortable discussion about weird $40 sex jars from Japan

LISTEN: Show Link | RSS Feed | iTunes Link

Well, it’s definitely gotten easier. The PM-21, for example, is a $129 podcast kit that includes a mini-mixer, microphone, mic stand, and Audacity software. It’s just enough gear to make you dangerous.

The mixer has two 1/4″inputs and one stereo RCA input. A small 1/8″ cable is designed for MP3-input and each channel has treble, bass, and volume knobs. There is a master output control along with two headphone outputs. The mixer connects as a USB audio device and uses an odd but not unusual full-USB to full-USB cable, something you rarely see anymore. It requires 12 volts of DC power.

The included mic stand is pretty solid although the clip is a bit cheap. The microphone, a MK-20 XLR model with 80-15kH frequency response and -56.5db sensitivity, is unpowered. The headphones, called the HP-20, are much too small to act as noise isolators and are, in truth, quite uncomfortable. You’re better off bringing your own.

The kit comes in a cardboard box with well-designed cut outs for each of the parts.

Download audio file (podcast.mp3)
The audio quality, as evidenced by this sample, is fairly good. The mixing tools are cool as are the various inputs but for about the same price you can feasibly put this kit together yourself.

My own jackassery couldn’t make this mixer clip out, even at high volume, which is a huge plus for beginning podcasters. If you get this kit, try buying a Shure mic along with it for yourself and save the included mic for your subjects.

Bottom Line
Nothing about this kit is bad, per se. It is a stable platform to start podcasting. Devices like the Samson G-Track offer a more all-in-one approach but the fact that you can set up a little podcasting station on the road and include others on the conversation is fairly valuable. The fact that the headphones are, technically, quite poor makes me recommend some BYO gear if you buy this mixer or to look at a higher-end device, perhaps from Yamaha or Numark, and compare and contrast.

Product Page

Here are some of the topics from today’s podcast…

• HP Envy 13 giveaway
• Phishing!
• Multitouch mice
• Avatar toys
• New Wii Mario Bros. game

LISTEN: Show Link | RSS Feed | iTunes Link

Here are some of the topics from today’s podcast…

• Microsoft Courier
• IREX DR800SG wireless e-book reader
• Intel shows off four-display laptop
• Bose Quiet Comfort 15 headphones

LISTEN: Show Link | RSS Feed | iTunes Link

Here are some of the topics from today’s podcast…

• Zune HD first impressions
• iMac hard drive upgrade challenges
• DirecTV’s Champions League coverage
• AMD’s $100 quad-core CPU
• ARM breaks 2GHz barrier
• iTwinge tactile iPhone keyboard
• Samson StudioDock 3i reviewed

LISTEN: Show Link | RSS Feed | iTunes Link | Trousers

This is probably a question that the record labels should be asking, but I’ll ask it here anyway: how do you guys listen to music in 2009? On your iPhone (or whatever portable device, it doesn’t matter for the purposes of this here post)? On your computer while you surf your favorite Web sites? At the gym? Now, how many of you will sit in front of your computer, and devote 100 percent of your attention to the iTunes visualizer? Not too many of you, I’d venture to guess.

That’s the problem, as I see it, with iTunes LP, which Apple announced last week during it “Rock and Roll” event, which was characterized by a noticeable lack of rock and/or roll. Now, as I said during our live play-by-play podcast, it’s not like the addition of iTunes LP is bad in and of itself; fine, add it, doesn’t bother me. It just seems so… strange.

This man, Jay Robinson, bought the iTunes LP edition of Jay-Z’s The Blueprint 3. Included in the purchase is an “ITLP” file, which is quite large (up to 500MB). Launching the file, you’re then taken to a table of contents of sorts, from which you can select to play all the songs, read the lyrics, look at some photos, etc. Again, Apple is trying to recreate the feel of “owning” a proper LP. One problem is that, if you’ve never owned an LP, how can you replicate that feeling?

The actual bonus items, again, are fine: some pics, a couple of videos, etc. That’s all fine and dandy. But if you’re never near your computer, if you’re doing your primary listening in the car on the way to work, or at the gym while they play MTV Presents: Some Piece of Junk, Part 2 on the TV, what good does having lyrics or photos handy do? Unless you’re hunched over your computer devoting 100 percent of your attention to the album, all those extra features are lost on you.

I’m trying to think how I mainly listen to music, and it mainly happens when I play World of Warcraft. I can load up Vox—like Devin, I’m a little tired of iTunes taking up incredible amounts of RAM and processor power to play a couple of MP3s—then go about my business in the game. The game volume is kept just loud enough to hear the clash of steel, and the casting of my Shadow Bolt spell, that I can still hear The Blueprint loud and clear. At no point am I thinking, “Man, I’d also love to be able to read the lyrics to ‘On to the Next One’ while I’m fighting trash.”

Again, there’s nothing wrong with iTunes LP per se, it’s just that it seems to deliver something that I can’t seeing be too useful most of the time. And never mind the price: $16.99 for The Blueprint 3, while the standard edition is $10.99. A whole $6 extra for something that I’m never going to use?

Of course, you’re free to call me a giant idiot, I’m just trying to start some sort of hot topic on a Sunday is all.