Here are some more quick-hitting thoughts as I wind down from a busy Thursday night / Friday morning...

1. Don't overlook Tony Hawk's Proving Ground for the Nintendo DS. It's easily a better game than Downhill Jam was last year, and it's got a gradual difficulty curve that will keep players interested for longer than a few days. Online play is cool, although some of those leaderboard scores are a bit fishy to me. (Also... the new Foo Fighters single, "The Pretender", is in this game... and it's now my favorite song at the moment.)

2. While Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck is one of the better-looking Nintendo DS games around, it also takes less than an hour to beat once-- and subsequent playthroughs don't reward players like they should. If there was ever a "Try me, but don't buy me" game... this one is it.

3. Sony CEO Jack Tretton told the Wall Street Journal that the reason for the removal of backwards compatibility in the soon-to-be-released 40GB PS3 model is not because it'll save money; instead, Sony wants consumers to buy PS3 games only, rather than use PS2 games. What a criminally stupid idea. I love the backwards compatibility that the Wii has-- I just bought a brand new copy of Super Smash Bros. Melee and am having a blast with it (again). If I was to buy this new PS3 SKU, I'd still have to leave my PS2 hooked up. Nice.

4. Speaking of the Super Smash Bros. franchise, I can understand that the delay of the game into February of next year was probably needed, but it still smarts that I won't be playing it this holiday season. I suppose this clears the way for other games, but still... I was really looking forward to this. Boo.

That's it for now. :-)