Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series

After nearly four months of waiting, a new Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged Series has surfaced. For those of you who haven't a clue what it is that I'm talking about, I'll take you back to three years ago. A lowly YouTube user named LittleKuriboh creates a little 5 minute spoof of the anime Yu-Gi-Oh! He takes an episode, splices it all up into a shortened flowing comedy, and does all the voices himself. It was probably the funniest and most easily quoted thing I watched all sophomore year. While I had watched quite a bit of the actual Yu-Gi-Oh! cartoon and read the manga that took place before the anime, it isn't required that you really know anything about it to enjoy the Abridged Series. Most of the references are quite nerd-based, so don't expect to get all the jokes unless you are a hardcore Nintendo and YTMND fan. While these videos were removed from YouTube because of supposed "usage violations," LittleKuriboh has them all posted on the Abridged Series' website.

These episodes used to come out weekly, but he rarely keeps on track. I was beginning to think that he would stop making episodes after his fiancee became ill (he proposed on YouTube actually) so it's been quite a while since his last video. I'm glad he hasn't forgotten about his loyal fans. Now, if only some of my manga that haven't come out in 4 months would be released...

Game Reviews

A friend of mine told me about a game reviewer who works for The Escapist magazine. His name is Yahtzee and he delivers his reviews and impressions of recent games at lightning fast British/Australian speeds. His program is called Zero Punctuation and always manages to make me laugh. Every Wednesday, like today, he comes out with a new review with a video to go along with it. It's rather profane, but if you don't mind that, I'd say it's hilarious. Because I'm not exactly "in the loop" I haven't a clue what new games are coming out unless I've been waiting for the game for months. Therefore, I stay a bit informed on what the game companies are doing while delaying Super Smash Bros. Brawl....again. His latest is a review on "The Witcher," so by all means, check it out.

For making fun of older games, I would recommend another reviewer named "PlayItBogart" up on the YouTube. He covers those terrible games from the late 80s and early 90s on the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. Once again, he is a little vulgar, but it's not quite as often as Yahtzee.

While it may be a conflict of interest to direct you to other peoples' reviews, I don't get paid, and they make me laugh, so by all means.