Catching up

OK, so I've been MIA since writing that first Buy Pile Report on Wednesday. I've been finishing off "Kingdom Hearts II" in what little time I have away from work. Yes, I know I'm late to the party on this, it's a game I had always planned on playing, since I loved the first, but the timing just never worked.

You understand what it's like to plan on putting the controller down at a certain time, only to end up playing until sunrise, right? Yeah, I knew you would understand.

Either way, just a quick finish to that Buy Pile Report...

- If you picked up Countdown to Final Crisis #26, you don't need to worry about buying the first 25 issues of this story. It's like as if Cliffs Notes was employed by DC to recap their story in which nothing ever happens.

- Justice Society #10 dropped my jaw. I know I am getting a little fanboyish lately regarding this title, but when KC Supes swooped in to save that girl, I wanted to cheer, right here in the middle of the newsroom.

- Death of the New Gods #2 continued to succeed in every way... except for choosing Mister Miracle's new color scheme. He just looks a bit too, I don't know, Obsidianish. Still, great story here, the best far and away of the Countdown Tie-ins.

- Action #858 confused the hell out of me... I mean, it was a good start to the story and all, but since when is Clark Kent so socially inept? Didn't that whole angle get dropped somewhere around 1988? Isn't he married with now a foster son? Am I missing something?

The other topic I wanted to touch on was this whole "Manhunt 2" hack. Is anyone really surprised by this? I mean, the programmers put all that time and effort into making the game the right way at first, then they have to trash all their most gruesome stuff... OF COURSE they are going to leave some of it in there if you know how to get to it!

And yeah, they probably only intended to that good extra stuff to be used by people they know, and by themselves in the future, but should anyone really be surprised that the general public is now seeing it? The programmers did enough to slip this game past Mr. Conservative Goalie, but not because they wanted to.

And now the choice to buy it or not for your kid isn't up to the ESRB, its up to — GASP — parents! Oh, no, the law won't help you now, parents, are you going to take an interest in your kids lives now and stop them from playing this game? Probably not.