With 162 games in a season, does anyone ever really expect it all to come down to the wire? Could anyone have guessed that not one playoff race, but two of the eight playoff spots would have been decided in the last game of the season? Did you guess that of those two, one would still not be decided until tonight?

That’s how crazy this season has been. Only the AL West’s Angels managed to secure a playoff berth earlier than the last two weeks of play. The Mets were knocked out in their last game of the season (by our favorite Florida Marlins) and the White Sox and Twins have a one-game playoff to play tonight to decide which one of them will go on to play the Tampa Bay Rays for the ALDS thanks to a grand slam by their rookie phenom Alexei Ramirez.

Be sure to tune in tomorrow when the regular season is finally over for a last look at my Wednesday Morning Quarterback predictions to see just how well I did this season. I’ll also be making predictions for the post season, which should be interesting. It’s so tough to predict for the time of year where most every player steps it up to an unprecedented degree.

Deep from the trenches, it’s time for your Monday video feature: Embedded Reporter.

A good friend of mine was inspired to create this video based on a song by one of my favorite bands and featured in ne of my favorite TV shows, Flight of the Conchords. Enjoy the well done animation:

Robots from djotaku on Vimeo.

Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen.

With every Final Fantasy game there exists great (and not so great) teams of heroes bent on saving the world from some sort of evil force. While we could take a look at those heroes, let’s instead take a look at the evils that motivate these heroes to do what they do.

It should be noted that this feature will be full of spoilers.

Starting at the beginning, we have Garland/Chaos. After the Light Warriors defeated him in the present, he had the fiends send him 2000 years in the past where he became Chaos and sent the fiends to the present. Yes, it’s a confusing time loop, but this is what Sakaguchi wrote for his first RPG epic.

Unfortunately, that’s about the extent of the villain’s development, it being a rather primitive Final Fantasy game. Garland was supposedly a corrupted good knight too, but that’s about it.

Is he a good villain? Naw, not really. You see the guy twice in the game, once at the start, where he’s a tool that’s easily dispatched, and then once at the end of the game, where he transforms into Chaos and you kill him. He has much more of a presence and personality in Brian Clevinger’s 8-Bit Theater.

There’s not much to say about this one-dimensional villain, but without Garland, we wouldn’t have the other bosses of the future. We thank you Garland, for paving the way.

Images:

PSP Remake Sprite
Dissidia Concept Art
8-Bit Theater Garland
Chaos PSP Sprite

Battle Footage:

Garland

Chaos

Breaking news:

Following the departure of Jeff Green from the GFW magazine, it seems that my actual favorite member of GFW, Shawn Elliot, is also splitting to head to 2k Boston, the game studio responsible for Bioshock.

While I applaud his career move out of the sinking ship that is GFW, I have to say that I will really miss his presence on 1Up podcasts. Best of luck to you out there in Boston, we’ll miss you man.

You’ve probably heard the saying that hindsight is 20/20 on Monday morning, so just imagine how well I can call ’em two days later on Wednesday. That’s right, it’s time for Wednesday Morning Quarterback, your weekly sports round-up.

It’s a real mystery. How can the Rays keep almost losing their lead only to come back in seriously clutch games. Last night the Rays left the Trop with a walk-off single by Dioner Navarro in the bottom of the ninth. Are they in the clear yet? No. They’re only one game up on the Sox with one game left tonight and a series against the Twins following. After that, it’s less pressure with games against the Orioles and Tigers, non-playoff contenders.

In other baseball news that thrills me, the Florida Marlins have been doing pretty well erasing some of their game deficit and building against the Mets and Phillies. Unfortunately, at 5.5 games back it’s gonna be a tough climb that requires cooperation from the strong Phillies and collapsing Mets.

In one of my favorite games of the week, USC blew out OSU 35-3. The Buckeyes will finally be properly ranked (13) before the end of the season. The past two years saw them dominate Big-10 teams and get a high ranking only to drastically lose in out of conference play against the other team. The Buckeye era is over, making me very happy.

I hope that those of you who read my blog could tell from the get go that Death Race would be a stinker. I mean, it’s a movie about a prison race to the death to earn your freedom, not to mention that Jason Statham, who never refuses a buck, is in it.

It’s hard to even justify writing a full-blown review on this movie. I only went because my friends asked me to and we hit up a bar to pregame before it. The movie is a stinker with brutal automotive violence being its only draw. If you REALLY like car movies and don’t mind stupid action movies, go see it, otherwise it’s a rental AT BEST, but should otherwise be avoided.

Deep from the trenches, it’s time for your Monday video feature: Embedded Reporter.

Spore’s recent launch has got millions of creatures being created. Here is a small sampling of some creatures made by my friends.

My First Spore Creature from djotaku on Vimeo.

My Second Spore Creature Part 1 from djotaku on Vimeo.

My Second Spore Creature Part 2 from djotaku on Vimeo.

Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen.

In one of the more perplexing DLC moves, Harmonix has released the single “Charlene (I’m Right Behind You)” the “80s song by Stephen and the Colbert’s” on Rock Band. It’s pretty hilarious to see and, as it has been pointed out, a brilliant move to synergize corporate products by Viacom who owns both Comedy Central and Harmonix.

Whoa guys, I haven’t got anything prepared for today, but here’s a taste of some of the exciting events and things coming up for the blog and the world in general:

Stephen Colbert song in Rock Band!

Rock Band 2 launch on 14 Sept!

(1) USC vs. (2) OSU game on Sat!

Across the Universe movie review!

Death Race movie review (ugh…I’m being forced to see this)…

Burn After Reading movie review!

and maybe a new feature for Game Overview tomorrow =O

See you all tomorrow!

You’ve probably heard the saying that hindsight is 20/20 on Monday morning, so just imagine how well I can call ’em two days later on Wednesday. That’s right, it’s time for Wednesday Morning Quarterback, your weekly sports round-up.

MLB Baseball

The Tampa Bay Rays are determined to send me to an early grave. A five game lead, almost evaporated, sitting now at 1.5 up on the Boston Red Sox. After dropping six (SIX!) of eight to start off the month, they finally decided to win when it counts, in the second game of three against the Bo Sox. There’s no way they can hold on to this pennant and world series push if they don’t keep beating the Red Sox. The almost have to take the game tonight and the next series against the Yankees if they’re gonna have any ability to stand up against the Sox next series and hold on for the rest of the season. There’s only one easy series for the Rays for the rest of the season, and that’s against the Orioles. They’ve still got series against the Yankees, Red Sox, Twins, and Tigers. It’s gonna be a rough stretch.

In sadder news, it’s looking increasingly less likely that the Marlins will be able to put together a playoff run. At 8.5 games back their ONLY chance is to not drop any more games against the Phillies (four left, counting tonight) or Mets (three games left, the last series of the year). Regardless, you can’t say that there’s a non-contending team with any more relevance to a playoff race than the Marlins. Philly is 2.5 games back on NY, but with games against both teams, just a few mistakes can drastically change the top of the NL East.

College Football

College Football, oh how I’ve missed you! Welcome back. I know you’re in the second week, but I was too busy to catch the games that week. Besides, the Gators played Hawaii. Who cares? This week I saw a few very interesting games that can have a lasting effect on the season:

Ohio State

When, oh when are we going to stop overrating the Buckeyes? OSU has been a consistently high rated football team for at least three years now (I’ve only been really paying attention to college football for that long), but for what reason? They play in the criminally weak Big Ten where they, of course, dominate and end up rated nice and high. Then they go to the big games out of conference, like against the Gators or Tigers (GO SEC!) and get trounced. At least this year the BCS poll seems less fooled, with the Buckeyes rated at No. 5, especially after their disappointingly poorly played win against the Ohio Bobcats.

Do the Buckeyes have a chance against the Trojans? No. Pac-10 may also be weak, but the Trojans have always been a damn good football team. They will destroy the Buckeyes. I can tell you for sure that I’ll be tuned in this Saturday on ESPN to watch them lose. I love it when the Buckeyes lose.

Gators

Hope you watched the UF vs UM game this weekend, it was a blast. It’s always a good game when you have those rivalry games played, no matter what the ranks are. Only thing that concerns me about the Gators is that Tebow doesn’t seem to be as dominant. Not such a big issue, but I kind of wanted him to take two Heismans. There’s still plenty of time in the season…

Man do I love college football. Can’t wait for Saturday!