-Wouldn’t the world be a better place if it were filled with at least one really inappropriate video game cake? If you believe in the power of frosting underpants, then go on and take the Heroine Sheik survey. We still need 33 more people to fill it out before the baking can commence. Last chance!

-Only three months later than expected, the closed beta for Zivity has finally opened, allowing drooling oglers with press creds like me to scope supposedly Web 2.0 style non-porn porn. You’ll remember Zivity as the site that claimed to be joining social networking with amateur beauties to bring innovation to the world of online nakedness. So far I’m seeing a lot of nakedness, but not a lot of innovation. Stay tuned for updates…

-I’m not normally a fan of Game Daily’s million-and-a-half, often sexually-themed picture galleries. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as curious as the next gal which ten game characters “need to get laid,” but when a new slideshow comes out every day–and with shoddy commentary at that–it’s starts to feel so… attention needy. Anyways, despite my Grinch-dom, I couldn’t help but giggle at this brilliant (in concept, at least) collection of “Top 10 Pokémon We’d Like to Eat.” Just the other day, Scott and I were talking about the politics of pokémon eating. Then he went ahead and posted about it on Joystiq. Then he added “Peking-style Psyduck” to our grocery list. So very, very wrong…

Wow, I feel like such a real person. Yesterday, my first piece went up at Forbes.com, where I’ve become a technology freelancer–and possibly someday a full-time staff writer. The article, “How to Spark Remote Learning,” looks at instructors who are using Second Life to teach English as a second language, with apparently awesome results. It’s a subject close to my own heart, since by day I still work with French hooligans who, apparently, can’t spell the word “squirrel”. If I had more of a budget (ok, if I had any budget) it would be awesome to set them up with computers and see what kind of progress they could make with a program like Second Life English–especially since Second Life students get to go on questing field trips and learn super useful phrases like “pirate’s booty.”

Alongside my piece, Forbes.com is also running a fun photo gallery called “Top 10 Life Lessons from Video Games.” While most of the lessons are pretty serious–”Looks aren’t everything,” “People yearn to breathe freely”–my personal favorite is #10: “When life gives you problems, throw a large ball.” Specifically, throw a pokéball. If it can work for capturing full-size animals in tiny spheres, it can work for getting rid of whatever is bugging you. Nagging girlfriend? Pokéball. Disapproving boss? Pokéball. Unsightly heap of recyclables post-St. Patty’s day? You know where this is going…

Forbes.com, I’m honored to join the team!

Warning: this is the post where I say potentialy bad things about Smash Bros. Brawl. Anyone who’s pregnant, suffering from a heart condition, or just likes to stone non-conformist game bloggers, I recommend skipping this one.

Let’s get the easy stuff out of the way: Brawl is great. It’s pretty, it’s a blast to play, and it’s packed with fanboy (and girl) pay-offs. Of course, it’s not perfect. Scott’s “Gripes and Glees” over at Joystiq pretty much sum up all my minor issues: controller confusion, character floatiness, an all-consuming love of stickers, etc. Like any other reviewer, I was psyched when it arrived on my doorstep, and I’m even more psyched to play it online with my friends across the Atlantic. But…

As great as Brawl may be, I don’t think it deserves the attention and energy it receives. No one is denying that it’s fun, and it’s always exciting to get the newest version of a cool toy–but in a lot of ways that’s all Brawl is. We can talk about new characters and levels and moves until we’re blue in the face, but the fact of the matter is Smash Bros. hasn’t changed all that much over the years. Yes, I know, consistency is important in a fighting game. Yes, I know it’s not supposed to be an innovative title. Still, does no one else seeing something off about treating it like the second coming?

Most of the time I’m a Smash Bros. supporter. It’s the first title I bought for the GameCube, so it has a place close to my heart. And like any good fan, I dig the ability to beat up the characters I know and love. But when you boil it down, there’s something very masturbatory about game. Here we are, huddled in our game culture, get super excited about playing a game built from other games. You could call it self-referential, or meta, or in-bred, but really it’s a multi-level circle jerk. Brawl gets worked up over other Nintendo titles while we get hot and bothered over our Nintendo fan-dom. The whole thing closes in on itself until every detail about the game is breaking news in the gaming community.

Of course, the more tightly the whole thing weaves together, the harder it is to bad-mouth Smash Bros. without leaving the game culture altogether. It’s called hegemony, yo. With that, I’m off to take out my frustration on some Brawl CPU’s. That’ll show… someone.

Mario Kart Wii comes out April 27th, and while normal people are busy getting psyched for motorcycles and roadway tricks and hours of online play, I’m just missing the Double Dash ability to kick someone’s ass from the back of a moving vehicle.

Specifically, I’ve always been a fan of the two-player co-op mode in Double Dash. True, my kart racing skills have been honed since the N64 days, when kicking my brother’s ass was a point of preteen pride, but to be honest I prefer the back seat. From there, I could concentrate on, well, being a jerk: throwing shells at people at annoying moments, and most importantly punching them in the side if they got too close. To top it off, I never had to pay attention to the road. Real-life driving should be that way!

The Double Dash co-op mode was also great for–dare I say it?–girlfriends. Okay, it works for anyone who’s willing to put aside their gamer ego and ride bitch: boyfriends, girlfriends, your mom, whoever. The idea that some second person can snuggle up close to you in that little kart just to pound on your enemies at close range… What could say love and togetherness better?

Obviously I’m bummed co-op mode (and all naming creativity) seems to have disappeared from Mario Kart Wii. I suppose I’ll just have to learn to steer and punch people at the same time all by myself. Now to role down my car window and find someone to punch…

Like a lot of people, I first heard about LittleBigPlanet at last year’s GDC. I don’t own a PS3, and I don’t intend to own one anytime soon, but I couldn’t help but fall for the game. It’s not so much the idea of user-created levels that got me, or even the cooperative play–it’s totally the aesthetic. LittleBigPlanet is, if nothing else, adorable. The strange thing is though, it’s the game’s awesome graphics that make it so darn cute.

In a Slashdot article a couple years ago, I argued that there’s an innate split between style and realism in game art. Stylization often means cuteness (i.e. a “feminine” sensibility), whereas realistic graphics often mean perfectly rendered macho characters and their perfectly rendered guns (i.e. a “masculine” sensibility). At the time, the screenshots from Twilight Princess were still exciting news. Lots of traditional fanboys were psyched to see the realistic Link beat out the “cutesy” hero of The Wind Waker. Cute and realistic clearly didn’t go together.

When we think of games with cute aesthetics, that rule normally holds. Katamari Damacy, for example, uses blocky characters and lots of bright, solid colors. MySims gives us super-deformed avatars with blocky legs who might as well be preschool toys. And LocoRoco wins our hearts with simple yellow blobs.

But LittleBigPlanet breaks that mold. It’s both highly detailed and highly squeezable. In fact, I’d argue it’s the fact that we can see every stitch of the characters’ skin that makes them so cute. Because we can imagine them as real little creatures, or even just as real stuffed animals, we have a much more sympathetic and tangible response to their aesthetic. And it doesn’t hurt that we’re seeing these creatures up next to everyday objects: oranges, bits of wood, etc. Katamaris we have to bake into cakes and knit into hats before we can interact with them. These guys are already super easy to imagine picking up and hugging!

-Related to nothing and everything, this amazing “Peep Show” pic expresses my love for Easter candy and debauchery all at the same time. God bless the person who made this; may they be showered with a life time’s supply of marshmallow-y goodness for the construction of future inappropriate dioramas. Also, the bunnies have candy pasties!

-Fleshbot reports on what appears to be a Jenna Jameson zombie porno. Yes, I know the word “zombie” is in there. That’s what makes it so weird. I’m envisioning something along the lines of “Jenna rises from the dead with an unstoppable need to eat brains.. or just get eaten out,” or something equally horrible. Also, will sexy moans get exchanged for zombie grunts? [Note: see comments for correction on Zombie Strippers.]

-And Multiplayer talks with the woman in charge of a “girls in the games industry” scholarship–whose secondary role, apparently, has been to advise underwear-ignorant male designers on implementing more logical bra straps on female characters. So much energy spent on bouncy physics and so little thought given to gravity…

Happy Weekend!