Dalai (Level 21)

And why did they show up in my game? 
 
April 1st is the day of the liar, the asshole, and the motherfucker, but it's also a day when the internet tries to be funny. Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails, often it fails. Steam had some fun today with several updates which added things like "bugs" and "better ammo" in Super Meat Boy. Team Meat went a step further with Tofu Boy's more tolerant brother, Potato Boy. After a minute of play, I realized he's like a slightly faster Tofu Boy. 

He'd make a great plate of fries someday. 
 

And now, my final thought.

 

• Long John Silver's is still nasty shit. It's a good thing I only venture into one of those places once every 3 or 4 years.
• We should finally release Rebecca Black into the wild to roam free without any interaction with the internet and society. She's starting to blend in and make light of her awful, awful song. It's been fun and she made some cash out of the deal, but let's move on.
• Giant Bomb looks only mildly different. Subtle, yet sleek.
• BASEBALL!
• That Saints Row: The Third trailer was appropriate and hilarious. I like how it's becoming more and more like the anti-GTA. If THQ can make a half-decent port of it on the PC, they might have my money. Maybe.
• Note to the staff: fix the chat, please. You already know that, but it must be drilled in your heads.

And fuck April Fools' Day! 
 
And finally, I'm Batman.

The biggest tournament of the year started about two weeks ago and like many Americans (presidents included) I filled out a bracket, but this year turned out to be a year of upsets and Cinderella teams. So for reference, here's my bracket. 

And here are the actual results as of today.* 

I was fairly successful with my 1st (or 2nd round as they call it now) picks except I had Jeff Gerstmann going all the way to the championship only to be upset by the plucky Rich Gallup. It got much worse as all of my Final Four picks were eventually knocked off including Duke... er, I mean Luchadeer. However I'm glad to see "The community is still a threat!" making a shocking run to the Final Four. So I'm rooting for good ol' TCISAT! 
 
* Brackets based on the actual 2011 NCAA Basketball Men's Tournament Bracket so don't bitch at me if your team didn't win. Blame Butler. Or VCU.

WiiWare might get some more credibility with this little retro nugget. River City Ransom 2 is officially going to be a thing. At least in Japan. Sources say that some of those who worked on the original are currently working on the sequel that I guess is 20 years in the making? That's like one and a half Duke Nukem Forevers! I can't say I'm excited for it just yet since there's no official news on a release in the US, but if it's following the Technos revival they're pushing with that dodgeball game (in stores now) I can support this move. It's also coming to the PC later which means the game will eventually be announced for Xbox Live and PSN... as they cancel the WiiWare version. 
 
Now we need another unofficial Renegade sequel so Miracle Kidz, there's your next project!

Mascots? Yes, mascots. 
 
The video game industry has relied heavily on video game mascots since the days of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, but this generation might be the first generation that has forgotten how to make a great kid-friendly, yet universally appealing mascot. This generation is filled with ultra-realism or space marine action (not that there's anything wrong with those games) yet traditional video game characters are being ignored even though I believe there's still room for the typical anthropomorphic heroes and cartoon human protagonists. From the top of my head, I can think of only 3 new characters this year that can achieve mascot status. 
 

• Sackboy could eventually become Sony's equivalent of Sonic or even Mario as a character that can define the company. Sackboy is just the most recent creation Sony can call their own, but Sony has probably been the most aggressive company in the past several years when it comes to creating fresh characters to compete with Nintendo's stack of 80s and 90s stalwarts. After Sony ditched Crash Bandicoot and Spyro, they just ramped it up last generation with Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter, and Sly Cooper. This generation, the only new boy in town is Sackboy, but give him credit for being pretty good at his craft. He's a master of disguise and damn near adorable, something we need to see more often.
• The Rabbids are really more of a race than a single character, but they've managed to screw Rayman over by taking over the Ubisoft mascot scene. Yes, they're mostly about minigames, but at least a little bit of love is put into the games unlike the tsunami of half-assed minigames during the Wii's early days. Maye the Rabbid craze has faded a bit due to overexposure, but they can still make me laugh... maybe it's because they're the most French of the mascots we've seen lately.
• And finally, de Blob. THQ stumbled upon a family-friendly game that's not based on a Disney movie or rhymes with Plungemob Snarechants. de Blob reminds me a bit of Kirby with Sonic's attitude circa 1992, before Sega ruined him. I was glad to see de Blob get a sequel as well as widening his audience to the HD crowd and I'd like to see it pay off.

 
So is the traditional video game mascot yesterday's news or am I paranoid?