Where have all the instruction manuals gone?  Once upon a time it was common (even expected) to tear into a new video game and find a big bold colorful guide on playing the game waiting inside the box or case.  Those manuals, full of rich artwork and useful information, are largely becoming a thing of the past in the name of environmental responsibility and good old fashioned greed.  Joey Davidson explores this phenomenon over at TechnoBuffalo.

I believe it was Ubisoft that announced a year or so ago that they were going to eliminate manuals from their physical launches because it was, something to the effect of, “better for the environment.”

Maybe. Seems like a pretty convenient thing to get Mother Earthy about to me. Better for the environment? Think about how much money Ubisoft and other publishers save by eliminating the need to print off a full manual in color and place it in every single game case for every single game they make. It’s probably a lot.

But, hey, they backed up their decision with the environment, so complaining about it just makes me look like some fool that loves styrofoam cups and dumping used oil down neighborhood sewers.

So, now we're losing instruction manuals in the name of decreased operating expenses and greater profits.  I miss manuals now that they're leaving us in droves, but I must admit that I'm guilty of not reading them much anymore when they do appear.  Somewhere along the way I became so eager to start a game that I just started to dive in and expected that I'd figure things out through tutorials or old fashioned trial and error.  I think it was last generation that started to sour me on reading them.  Color booklets printed on glossy paper were replaced with black and white diagrams inked on cheap, thin stock.  Worse, there were manuals such as the one for Tony Hawk's Underground 2 which was more advertisement than actual informational guide.  That was a sickening discovery, I assure you. 

Are you still looking to get a good view of the Expensive Electronic Entertainment Expo from this past Sunday's new episode of The Simpsons? Check out this stitched together wide-angle image from "The Food Wife" of Homer, Lisa, and Bart attending the mass craziness that is E4. I don't know about you, but I'd definitely play Grand Theft Scratchy and Shaun White: Time Snowboarder. Pay close attention to some of the games in this image and you'll find a few long-running properties from other episodes of the series. Mapple, GameStation, Cosmic Wars, and Blocko are all gags from past shows that parody Apple, PlayStation, Star Wars, and Lego. Bongo Games is a reference to the label that prints The Simpsons and Futurama comic books, Bongo Comics. Protovision and Electronic Crafts clearly ape Activision and Electronic Arts. My favorite gag in the image is Dig Dug Revelations in that it implies that there's something dramatic about Dig Dug that needs to be revealed. The same can be said for the not-in-this-image Q*Bert Origins in that it implies there's a reason why we need to see Q*Bert's childhood (in fact, that image features familiar Q*Bert characters in diapers). While games using the "Revelation"s and "Origins" titles can be worthwhile, too many developers are leaning on them as a crutch when it comes time to give a game a title. Cheers to The Simpsons for calling out those overused subtitles.

(via Reddit)

Amazon is clearing out the warehouse again prior to the big holiday shopping season, and today the online retailer is purging itself of collector editions of recent big name video games.  If you've been interested in that special edition of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Dead Rising 2, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, or some of the other sets on sale but haven't wanted to dish out $100 or more, then this is the discount for you.  Also on offer are deals on special editions of Killzone 3, Dark Souls, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Mortal Kombat, Epic Mickey, Saints Row: The Third, Duke Nukem Forever, and, um, Heathcliff.  Collector sets that once retailed for more than $100 are up to 75% off, so this is one of Amazon's better offerings this season.  Why not get yourself or that special someone on your shopping list a little something?  A portion of each purchase made through the green link here goes to help support PTB, so thanks in advance for your assistance during telethon season.

I said a few years ago that when it comes to beloved 1980s properties, I really wanted to see worthwhile games based on Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, and Gremlins. The first two have been handled since then thanks to Terminal Reality and Telltale Games respectively, and now GamePro has the news that a new Gremlins video game starring Gizmo is headed to the Nintendo Wii and DS soon. How soon? Later this week. So what's the game about?

Set to release this Friday, November 18, Gremlins Gizmo allows players to interact and play with the series' iconic mogwai, Gizmo, or one of his Furby-esque friends in a variety of mini-games.

Oh. Yeah, that's not quite what I had in mind. Come to think of it, back at E3 earlier this year I saw a Gremlins game on display that involved making mogwai dance in a very mini-game type of presentation. Seeing it in action made my soul depressingly weep. Could this be that game? Either way, Gremlins deserves more than a mini-game. Gizmo and his dark spawn deserve a proper adventure game from Telltale or a flashy action game for a high definition home console. Interacting exclusively through mini-games isn't exactly my idea of a good time. Something tells me that Gremlins Gizmo will never spend any time in the spotlight, but considering that mogwais hate bright light, I suppose that's only appropriate.

Like it or not, downloadable content has become big business this generation of video games.  Where games used to ship as completed products, now they come in pieces with additional material sold to us via online marketplaces on top of the actual cost of the game itself.  Some of this expansion content is worth a few extra dollars, but an alarmingly increasing number of it are basic cash-grabs from greedy publishers.  Cracked has a list of the ten most insulting pieces of DLC that includes everyone's favorites such as Elder Scrolls horse armor, Street Fighter III color packs, and in-game Godfather money.

In 2006, Bethesda Game Studios used their popular open world game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to test the waters of DLC, and decided to go about it like they were trying to capture drunk fish with wallets. The first DLC they rolled out invited players to "Protect your horse from danger with this beautiful handcrafted armor." Unfortunately, it turned out that the armor didn't serve much of a function within the game, so they were asking you to spend $2.50 on pretty virtual horse-clothes. While this was an enticing offer to anyone who had accidentally installed Oblivion instead of My Little Pony, none of those people were clever enough to steal their mom's credit card.

The trend continues as Sony has announced more DLC for its recently released Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception.  Prior to the game's release, Uncharted fans were encouraged to save money on future then-unannounced DLC by buying into a season pass called the Fortune Hunters' Club.  Unfortunately, so far the majority of the DLC in that package has turned out to be repurposed content from Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.  The first two multiplayer skin packs were rolled out on Uncharted 3's release day, both of which contained skins for characters from Uncharted 2 that many fans of the series bought last time around.  Of course, owning that content for Uncharted 2 doesn't enable it for Uncharted 3.  Another skin pack is due today that includes content based on Killzone 3 to replace/augment the Killzone 2 add-ons for Uncharted 2, while the first actual multiplayer map pack is dubbed "Flashback Map Pack #1".  As the name implies, it features returning maps The Cave and The Fort from Uncharted 2 and is apparently not the only throwback DLC on the way.  It would seem that the plans for Uncharted 3 DLC involve charging players again for content from the previous game in the series.

Publishers are taking the cheap and easy way out on DLC these days, yet are still charging high prices and offering up incomplete games at full cost.  The situation will only start to improve once the gaming community declares that enough is enough and stops buying these overpriced insults.  We should expect more from the industry than extra colors and map reruns.

Do you want to share your thoughts about a recent episode of the Power Button podcast, but sending an e-mail just takes too much work?  Would you prefer that your ideas be expressed on the show in your own glorious booming voice?  By audience demand, here comes the Power Button hotline!  Now you can leave voicemail for the Power Button podcast team by calling (720) 722-2781 (that's (720) PBCAST1) and speaking your mind after the beep.  We'll share the best calls on the air and discuss them.  Feel free to comment on a recent news item, expand on something you heard us talk about on a previous episode, offer your thoughts on an upcoming topic, or just plain offer gushing praise.  We really like gushing praise.

The Simpsons have visited many places, but it took them until Season 23 to visit the Expensive Electronic Entertainment Expo (otherwise known as E4).  On last night's episode, "The Food Wife" Homer takes Bart and Lisa to see the upcoming Funtendo Zii Zu, encounters plenty of video gaming culture along the way, and gets a look at new titles such as Medal of Duty and Guts of War II: Entrails of Intestinox.  Normally this is where I'd include the scene via Hulu, but since they're now posting new episodes on a one-week delay, you'll have to settle for this quote from Simpsons writer Matt Selman regarding the inclusion of E4 in the episode:

Selman and other staff members on the show had previously visited E3 during the release of The Simpsons video games such as The Simpsons Game. While appearing on GameTrailers TV with Geoff Keighleyon November 11, 2011, Selman commented that: "We've been to so many [E3s] and we've been pushed around, and knocked around, and seen so many PR guys [talk] about how hard it was working on their game. We've seen how expensive the food is, and how nuts it is, and the bloggers, and the photos, and just the noises [...] We had to do it on the show."

Selman noted that "if you've been to E3, you know it's insane, it's super-crowded, it's super-loud, and walking through it feels like a video game, like a nightmarish first-person video game of bloggers and nerds. You just want to get the thing that you want to get to."

Not Actual Game Footage has additional screenshots and joke summaries, and this video has more of the Selman interview intermixed with clips from the E4 segment.  It's especially biting satire that hits E3 hard, but it's all in good fun.  I especially enjoyed how many of the ongoing fictional brands and properties seen on The Simpsons meshed perfectly into video game adaptations such as a Blocko Angelica Button game riffing on the actual Lego Harry Potter titles and, of course, casting Homer in a real-life in-game mission of his own is outright hilarious.  This segment was very "inside baseball", but hopefully the humor is universal.  Still, if you've been to E3, I'm sure you know just how true to life it really is.

Sony's PlayStation Portable uses Universal Media Discs to store games.  That is so 2005.  The new hotness is about to be the company's latest handheld gaming device, PlayStation Vita, that relies on digital distribution and proprietary memory cards to get games into your hands.  All of those old UMDs are obsolete and unplayable on the Vita, yet the Vita is backward compatible with PSP software.  How's that work?  It'll play digital PSP games purchased from the PlayStation Store, but it will also be possible to link your old UMD collection with your PSN account in order to access classic PSP games in a downloadable format on the Vita that you already own in the old format.  However, there's a catch.  IGN breaks down the other shoe falling.

Late last week, we got some great news for PSP owners distressed over the fact that PlayStation Vita can't accommodate their UMD collections. Sony's Passport Program for Vita is the solution to all of that, allowing players to download a program for the PSP starting on December 6th which will allow the transfer of PSP games to the Vita at a lower cost.

However, news from Japanese blog Andriasang has some information that was overlooked when this program was announced. The key detail is that each UMD transfer will be tied only to a single PSN account. While Andriasang notes the obvious, that "Sony has not provided details on how it can determine if a UMD has been registered or not," this seems to fall in line with Sony's recent, more aggressive anti-piracy stance, culminating with whittling-down your ability to game-share between PSN accounts.

It seems obvious that Sony is only offering this program in order to keep the fans and early Vita adopters from revolting.  As you'll recall, a similar program for accessing UMD games on the UMD-less PSP Go didn't exactly work out for everyone in the end, and that device wound up largely dead in the water.  Moreover, do many PlayStation owners keep multiple PSN accounts?  Issues with people sharing multiple accounts in order to access cheap communal games aside, is there really a need for a single person to maintain more than one account (or even one account per region)?  I doubt that this will impact most PSP and Vita owners, but I keep waiting for worse news to come out of this.  Even with the restriction, it seems a little too benevolent from an industry that has no problems expecting us to keep buying the same games again and again at inflated prices over time.

How would you like to run through an obstacle course made up of some of the more possible challenges from the Mushroom Kingdom?  I'm talking about an officially sanctioned one, too, and not an unofficial tribute attraction.  To celebrate and promote the newly released Super Mario 3D Land for the Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo set up a physical challenge in New York City last Saturday in order to allow Mario's biggest fans to do a little running, jumping, and flagpole tagging of their own.  Here's a little B-roll video of the event in action for those who weren't able to make it to Times Square over the weekend.  You'll have to provide your own detailed costume though.

Super Mario 3D Land and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword are the clear winners when it comes to anticipation for new video games this month.  Who says that Nintendo doesn't have any gas left in the tank?  The company can still bring its A-game when it really wants to deliver.  Sonic Generations also scored well compared to the other titles on the list.  What other titles make up that 8.9% in the "other" category?  I'm most excited about Super Mario 3D Land, although I've enjoyed Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception and the aforementioned Sonic.  Up next for me is Assassin's Creed Revelations.  I want to play Skyward Sword and Saints Row: The Third, but I can only fit so much into this month, so they will just have to wait, sadly.  Call of Duty and The Elder Scrolls aren't my thing at all.  I have two weeks off from work at the end of the year and I intend to catch up on my backlog of games with some of that time.  I still have to finish L.A. Noire and the Portal 2 co-op expansion as well as catch the Riddler in Batman: Arkham City among a few other loose odds and ends.  Then there's December's releases to consider, too...

Speaking of Sonic Generations, I hope that you all are enjoying it as much as I am.  I find myself replaying my favorite levels not to better my scores or to unlock secrets, but because zipping around a spiraling highway or racing through a chemical plant is just plain fun.  I know that plenty of people are passing on it due to being burned by the last, er, decade of lackluster performance and diminishing returns from Sega's star character, but Generations really manages to get things right and present a completely enjoyable experience.  Classic Sonic is a refreshing throwback to a simpler time with his springy jumps and famous spin dash, while Modern Sonic is finally set free in well-designed levels that emphasize his strong points instead of the endless parade of bottomless pits and errand speed zones that lead nowhere.  Best of all, Sonic's cavalcade of annoying friends watch the action from the sidelines for the majority of the game!  Really, it's difficult to imagine a better Sonic title considering where the character has been lately.  So, having said all of that, I ask you: which of the two hedgehogs do you enjoy playing as the most?  Classic or Modern?  Let's hear your thoughts.