the RANDOM LoL is a website for video game reviews and Internet culture. Aside from pretty cool articles  written by a posse of enthusiastic writers and funny stick man Flash Animation/art, the site also allows for user posted topics, nice!

To top it up, the site is giving away Fable II Collector’s Edition for the Xbox 360 in a contest that ends on the 28th of February 2008 and it’s open to all members of the RANDOM LoL. So hurry, sign up now! Click here to visit the RANDOM LoL.

Visits to the arcade were pretty rare during my childhood. But whenever I got the chance to do so, I made it a point to watch other people play, especially those that were fighting games and shmups. It’s quite an enjoyable experience, and even as recent as 2 years ago, I spent more than half an hour in a Bangkok arcade watching a colleague beat King of Fighters.

While watching people play in arcades or even on Youtube might be fun, you can watch such footage on DVD. The Insanity DVD series features footage (of the superplay variety) from shmups and each DVD usually comes accompanied with the soundtrack CD for the games featured on the DVD disc along with extras such as booklets containing illustrations, settings data, audio CD timetable, comments and many more.

Check out the following Insanity DVD titles, the games featured are usually mentioned in the DVD’s title:

• Insanity DVD: The Flash Desire Raiden III [DVD+CD] (Click here for purchase information)
• Insanity DVD: The Aces High Raiden [2DVD+2CD] (Click here for purchase information)
• Insanity DVD: The Shooting Love XII Stag & Trizeal [DVD+CD] (Click here for purchase information)
• Insanity DVD: The Secret Lover Mushihimesama [DVD+CD] (Click here for purchase information)
• Insanity DVD: The Lunatic Ibara [DVD+CD] (Click here for purchase information)

If you are wondering why does the cover for the Japanese version of Mario & Luigi RPG 3!! looks so understated, you’ll have to look back at the covers of the first two games in this trilogy. All three covers share the same understated look, starting with Mario & Luigi RPG for the Gameboy Advance:

This is followed by Mario & Luigi RPG 2, which was released for the Nintendo DS. This conveyed more of the game’s plot compared to the that of the cover for the first game.

And then the latest in this series, Mario & Luigi RPG 3!!, also for the Nintendo DS:

The North American version of the Mario & Luigi RPG games on the other hand, tend to sport very busy covers and even longer titles! Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (a.k.a Mario & Luigi RPG) for the GBA had the following cover:

Whereas Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (a.k.a Mario & Luigi RPG 2) for the Nintendo DS had the following cover, which was very “busy” indeed:

As of now, there’s no word on the boxart and name for the North American release of Mario & Luigi RPG 3. Smart money is that both will be in the mold of Partners in Time and Superstar Saga. How about Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Gastrointestinal Tract?

The Interview Three-Dog Didn’t Broadcast

Three-Dog: Good evening children! Here’s Three-Dog! Now have I got a treat for you tonight. We have here, the Saviour of the Wastelands right here in MY studio for an exclusive interview! Now, 101, say something to all my, I mean your Wastelander fans out there.

Lone Wanderer: Hey ya.

Three-Dog: There you go people, our boy here is fighting the Good Fight! Few words needed indeed. So 101, it’s been a while since I last saw you…back when you fixed GNR’s satellite dish, how are things going? Did ya find your Dad yet?

Lone Wanderer: Nope, but I’ve been travelling around the Wastelands.

Three-Dog: You mean you have not found James yet? One day you came in here howling for your Dad and now you are just wandering around the Wastelands. What’s the deal, 101?

Lone Wanderer: I figure that I get some experience first before setting out looking for him. I mean…the Wastelands is a big bad place, at least that’s what they tell us in the Vault. Now I know it’s a big bad hellhole.

Three-Dog: Easy there 101. You do look different from the greenhorn look the first time you came in here. Is that combat armour you are wearing? And where did you get that big-ass gun?? I’m sure my listeners would be curious to know, not to mention yours truly.

Lone Wanderer: I got the armour as a gift, you know from Reilly.

Three-Dog: I heard about the mess you stirred up rescuing them Rangers, what the hell exactly went down there?

Lone Wanderer: I was looting a hospital when I got an emergency transmission on my Pip Boy. Turns out this bunch of Rangers were stuck on the roof of the building next door.

Three-Dog: So it was pure luck those Rangers were found? I’ll be damned. Now listeners, we all know what happened next. It seems that wherever Vault Boy here goes, those stinky Frankensteins will get creamed. Tell me 101, what’s the secret behind your success? Even I, the all-might Three Dog would like to know.

Lone Wanderer: See here this piece, it’s called the Lincoln Repeater; the best damn gun any Wasteland Wanderer could ask for.

Three-Dog: Here’s a question from one of our listeners, Lucy from Megaton. She asks: “Are you God?” Heh, that question should be pointed to me. Care to answer that 101?

Lone Wanderer: Nope, I’m just a guy with a bad-ass gun.

Three-Dog: I wouldn’t want to be holding you up here kid, you got places to go and people to kill and I’ve got a show to run. Any words for my listeners before you head off into the Wastelands?

Lone Wanderer: Always carry a big gun with ya. Having ammo highly recommended.

Three-Dog: There you have it children, the Saviour of the Wastelands. And now, a public service announcement, and this applies to you too, 101: Don’t feed the Yao Guai. That is all.

Like many people, I’m a contact lense user. But like many contact users, I don’t know what makes up my contact lense solution. Would you like to know? Acid is part of the ingredients. Check out Wired’s article What’s Inside: Bausch and Lomb Renu (contact lense solution).

Google has recently partnered with the Open Technology Institute and the Planetlab Consortium to come up with Measurement Lab (www.measurementlab.net). It’s described as “an open platform for researchers to deploy Internet measurement tools”.

One of the more interesting tools is Glasnost, which tests for whether Bittorrent is being blocked or throttled by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) Heh. Streamyx is going to fail that, no contest. What about one of those Malaysian WiMAX providers (P1 W1MAX, Amax, Ymax and their ilk)?

Other tools include NANO (detect whether an ISP is degrading the performance of a certain subset of users, applications, or destinations ~ coming soon) and DiffProbe (attempts to detect if an Internet access provider is classifying certain kinds of traffic as “low priority,” providing it with an inferior level of service ~ coming soon).

Are they enough to give your ISP a bad name? Check out the tools now at http://www.measurementlab.net/measurement-lab-tools.html

I’m back from my holiday in Sitiawan. I conveniently forgot to bring several DS cartridges with me, but having a useless Nintendo DS turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I happen to keep my secondhand Sega Dreamcast (and the entire games library that came with it) in my old home and I had the time to try out quite a number of games.

Two of the more interesting games turn out to be shmup.s Before mentioning the games, I need to state that my experience these past three days on these two shmups have left me with irrefutable evidence that I suck at shmups, but I like the genre nevertheless.

First up, Giga Wing 2. The first time I booted up the game, my brother asked how was I gonna play the game since the screen literally lit up with…bullets. Turns out everytime the protagonist shouted “Reflect-o-Force” or something like that, I survived a wee bit longer.

The first few moments of Mars Matrix served to be the several seconds of calm as the game lulls players into brief sense of complacency. This is before it unleashes the same bullet-porn hell not unlike Giga Wing 2. As with the latter, the most I’ve fared is Level 2.

It’s been an interesting Chinese New Year holiday with all the eating, drinking, gambling and DC shennanigans. Time to bring back the DC from its exile?

Let me shed some light on an obscure (in our part of our world, read: ASIA), table top footie game that is not foosball. It’s called Subbuteo and from what I’ve read this game which existed since the late 1940s has more in common with table top games (like Warhammer) than anything else.

I happen to read about the game on BBC News,and decided to do a little more research on my curious find. According to the Wikipedia article, the game is played with heavyweight figurines, an oversized ball, and a table top pitch.

Check out the following Subbuteo Finish Championship Final 2006 video:

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers, friends and family a very happy Chinese New Year. May the year of the Ox be a properous one for you and may you be blessed with good health and happiness!

If there’s a real life, albeit much more notorious version of Marvel Comic’s Tony Stark (a.k.a Iron Man), Broadcom’s co-founder Henry T. Nicholas would take the cake. The man makes high-tech his business (Broadcom makes integrated circuits), is a billionaire and has his own vices too, drugs and alcohol. He even has a moustache/beard thing going on:

Picture is from Wired Blog

The only difference is he doesn’t have a suit of armour, but goes around spiking tech execs with Ecstasy (you know..the drug?)

Read all about it here: Billionaire Entrepreneur Slipped Drugs To Tech Execs, Feds Allege