Game Zone: Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, Bombastic, Wrestlemania XIX
Everybody loves a bargain–especially gamers. Nintendo reports that GameCube sales have quadrupled since they dropped the price to $99.99.
Author: Jae-Ha Kim
Cuba Quarter
The “Lord of the Rings” crew may have left New Zealand, but Wellington hasn’t lost its buzz – particularly not the city’s Cuba Quarter. Located adjacent to the financial district, the nabe is home to funky boutiques, cafés and some crazy nightlife.
Game Zone: Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Voodoo Vince, Simpsons: Hit and Run
Game Boy Advance players won’t need cables to link handhelds together anymore, thanks to Nintendo’s plan to include a free device (similar to Bluetooth technology) with its upcoming “Pokemon” title, due out in 2004.
Game Zone: Disney’s Extreme Skate Adventure, Starsky and Hutch, Boktai
“I like ‘Halo’ on Xbox because you can play up to 16 players at once. We usually play four at a time and just kill each other. It’s fun.” — Chicago Fire defender Carlos Bocanegra
Speaking with … Joe Perry
Somehow, you don’t imagine rock guitar god Joe Perry tanning on a beach. But on this afternoon, that’s exactly what the Aerosmith guitarist is doing three hours before a Florida concert. Taking a breather from tanning, he phoned to let us know why Chicago stores love him, his mixed feelings about downloading music and why his kids made him change his bathing suit.
Style vs. comfort: Irresistible object, immovable force
By Jae-Ha Kim Chicago Sun-Times September 25, 2003 Experts are promising they’ll be able to deliver comfortable high heels. I don’t buy it. Comfort, of course, is relative. Wobbling around in a pair of stilettos […]
Speaking with … Hiram Fleites
When your band’s name is Kittens for Christian and one of your members is Neil Young (no, not that Neil Young), you have a bit of explaining to do. Phoning from New York during a sound check, vocalist Hiram Fleites called to fill us in.
Game Zone: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, GameDay 2004, Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb
“I have and play video poker, and I still don’t win very often. I have a pinball machine in my basement that I bought when I was 15. My kids play Tiger Woods 2003 and Splinter Cell (on XBox).” -Rick Nielsen, lead guitarist for Cheap Trick
Las Vegas
I’ve never been one of those people enamored of Las Vegas. I’d been here a couple times in the past for business, stayed in crappy hotels and had virtually no time to do anything but work. So I’m the last person you’d think would actually plan a vacation to Vegas. But when my fiance’s birthday rolled around this summer, it was a no-brainer where I would take him–Vegas, baby!
Game Zone: ESPN NFL Football, Alter Echo, Pokemon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire
It is the future and if you’re a shaper, you’ve got it made. Using a substance called plast, shapers may create anything they want-like weapons of mass destruction, space-age style. You play as a fledgling shaper named Nevin.
Speaking with….Patterson Hood
Phoning from Athens, Ga., Patterson Hood is a little spacey. Sick and stuffy, the singer/guitarist for Drive-By Truckers was happy for a little diversion from Kleenex and chicken soup. His band will be in Chicago this weekend for a two-night stint at the Abbey Pub (call 773-478-4408) to promote their new CD, “Decoration Day” (New West Records). “We’re a Southern band,” says Hood. “Rock was invented in the South for all practical purposes, but musicians from the South sometimes get a little attitude from Northerners.”
What a boy wants: women’s clothes
When Lucas Livingston and his girlfriend were shopping for pants at Bebe, they found just the right thing — a pair of fierce silver trousers accented with zippers and buckles. For him.
Gallery season truly something to behold
Today marks the opening of Chicago’s Fall gallery season. Whether you’re a serious art buyer or a simply a looky-loo like each of us, there’s surely something for everyone at this weekend’s openings. Paintings, sculptures, photography–it’s all covered here. We’ve even got the 411 on a 3-D computer project. You can’t beat the price–it costs nothing to look. Then, too, there’s the bonus of chatting up the artists. Many will be on hand at the openings of their new exhibits.
Speaking with … Courtney Taylor-Taylor
Courtney Taylor-Taylor is the lead singer for the Dandy Warhols. But get him in a conversation about remodeling and architecture, and you’d swear the guy was an architect or an interior designer–one who peppers his sentences with liberal doses of the “F” word, that is. On tour to promote the band’s new album, “Welcome to The Monkey House” (Capitol), Taylor-Taylor had a thing or two to say about his new Portland studio, the delights of touring and his method for preventing freakouts.
Game Zone: NCAA Football 2004, TRON 2.0
Between Madden and EA Sports’ football game franchises, is there really a need for competitors to even bother? This game rocks. The game controls are the same as before, but the game play is stronger, faster and better.
F-Zero GX
Are you feeling the need for speed? If your learning curve is fast and your patience is long, the latest in Nintendo’s racing franchise may win you over.
Jealousy, name-calling, tears: And it’s only the first week
‘Temptation Island 3″ promises: No games. No millionaires. No prizes. No kidding. Let’s face it: Shows like this are all about games. The pawns are willing participants who trade a little bit of their dignity for a free vacation to a tropical island where they’re televised flirting and often making out with 14 hot members of the opposite sex. This is one viewer’s impressions of the desires and deceptions this week on Fox’s island of seduction.
Fashion Buzz
Women hate trying on clothes. Women hate unrealistic sizes. But women love shopping. Comic Margaret Cho found that the only comfortable, fun clothes she could wear were ones she designed herself or had specially made for her.
Speaking with Alice Peacock
The number of brides and grooms who danced to Alice Peacock’s hit single “Bliss” at their wedding receptions surely is too numerous to count. But when the Chicago resident married her husband almost six years ago, they chose “Cheek to Cheek.”
Game Zone: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds, Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution, Soul Caliber II
Fast action, cool animation and plenty of options make this one of the best fighting games, bar none. There may be only 15 characters to select from, but thanks to the 1,500 accessory options (hair, clothes, facial features), there seem to be dozens more.