Did anybody else know that Robin Williams named his daughter after Princess Zelda? I sure didn’t until I saw this commercial and went to find out more on the internet! Apparently, Willaims’ son Zachary suggested the name to his father (who loved the idea) and it stuck since they were both huge Legend of Zelda fans. Even cooler – she is a gamer herself and has fond memories of playing the Legend of Zelda games. Her favorite in the series is Majora’s Mask.

Watch the new commercial from Robin and Zelda Williams for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D here:

If you’ve checked Steam today you may have noticed a weird absence of new releases from EA. Reddit Gaming and a few other sites have mentioned that EA is not going to release titles through Steam anymore. With no official word from the guys at EA we are left to mainly speculation. This does, however,  raise a great many questions. If they’re leaving Steam why are their titles still available on Amazon, Direct 2 Drive, and other download services? If this were simply about pushing their customers to Origin wouldn’t they leave the other services behind as well? What break down in negotiation lead EA to pull products specifically from Steam, and why would you pull from one of if not the biggest digital distribution source for PC gaming?

Steam has a huge following of loyal gamers, how is this going to effect sales of major EA titles on the PC side? The die hards will download BF3 through Origin, that’s their game and they have to play it. But with a noticeable absence of Battlefield, Mass Effect 3, The Old Republic, and other future titles will the PC sales for those titles suffer?  Games like Alice, that appeal mainly to the die-hard gamer and not as much casual seem to be the ones that will suffer the most.

This seems to me to be as big as releasing an album strictly on Amazon MP3, or a Universal Records based site simply to avoid iTunes.  You may not like iTunes, but your album is all but required to be on their service to be purchased by the masses.   I think EA is taking a huge gamble in leaving behind a wide audience for a smaller one.  What casual gamer or even hobbyist is going to download yet another piece of software to play a title, when there are thousands on their existing distribution source. What about the guys that look for weekend sales, or wait for all their community friends to jump on before they grab it? Did the developers have any say in this change, or is this strictly an EA based move.  Did Dice, BioWare, Spicy Horse, or anyone else being published by EA get input into the matter or did they make an executive decision.  There are a lot of questions to this change to be answered by EA, and hopefully we’ll here from them soon.

Currently the only title that we can confirm is no longer available that was previously is Crysis 2. If they’re leaving Steam behind why are their older titles still on the market? This may just be a glitch in the system but the vibe seems more serious than that.

I’m not sure if EA is necessarily shooting themselves in the foot on this one.  Steam is a huge power, but EA may be able to overcome that. I don’t understand would they risk it when they have guaranteed sales through Steam.  We’ll let you know if EA makes any official announcement, or responds to our questions about the change.

What do you readers think?  Does downloading Origin seem like an unnecessary hassle, or is it an easy change for you?

Comment Below.

Ten years ago, Bungie bestowed onto the gaming population the world of Halo with their cutting-edge first-person shooter, Halo: Combat Evolved. This game changed the face of FPS’s forever and spawned four sequels with Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo: ODST, and Halo: Reach all under Bungie’s care. Now the time has come for Bungie to pass the torch to the new caretakers of the Halo franchise, 343 Industries, but not without first going out with a bang.

“Bungie Day” is quickly approaching (07/07/11 – in honor of their love for the lucky number) and they have announced a bit of what you can expect through the two weeks leading up to this event that also marks Bungie’s 20th Anniversary.

Beginning on June 23rd, and running through the close of Bungie Day on July 7th, we’ll be celebrating the last twenty years the only way we know how – by giving you, the best -blam!- community on the planet, all the parting gifts we can muster.

Here are 7 reasons you should come out and celebrate with us this year:

1. Because Blue Flames aren’t just for Bungie Employees or fans with iPhones. We’ll be turning on Blue Flames and the Bungie Nameplate for every last one of our loyal fans. (Kids, do try this at home.)

2. Because we just built a brand-new and totally free community iPhone app to keep you connected…and entertained!

3. Because we’re going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what Bungie Aerospace is all about.

4. Because a collection featuring some of our rarest and most treasured personal Halo artwork will be up for auction, with all profits going to charity through a partnership between Child’s Play and the Bungie Foundation.

5. Because the Bungie Store is going to be packed with Swag Sacks containing random, but totally kick ass swag, limited run commemorative t-shirts, and amazing commissioned posters from a handful of incredible artists, with all profits also going straight to charity.

6. Because on Bungie Day we’ll be throwing down in a 24-hour Bungie vs. the World No Holds Barred Halo: Reach Marathon where we’ll be making the promise of Steaktacular a certified beefy reality. You steak us. We’ll steak you. Seriously, we’re going to mail any team who beats us by 20 kills or more on Bungie Day a Grade-A cut of steak (gift cards for international players) while supplies last.

7. Because you’ve been just as much a part of this incredible twenty years as we have, and we simply couldn’t bear it if you didn’t show up and help us celebrate our anniversary and help send our Halo baby out with one hell of a bang.

Of course, some of these are kind of vague, but the others are full of gaming goodness! Item number 6 is particularly funny to me. If you are unfamiliar with the Halo games, you can earn a medal while playing online called “Steaktacular” when you beat the opposing team but 20 kills or more. For Bungie to turn this medal into a “reality” by mailing actual steaks to any team that beats a Bungie Employee team by 20 kills or more is down right awesome and hilarious!

You also may have noticed the reference to Bungie’s new iPhone App that is now available for download through iTunes. This app allows you to track your Halo: Reach stats, commendation progress, and daily/weekly challenges right from your iPhone, as well as stay up to date on all the news from Bungie.net!

It’s our first, small step into the mobile world. The first of many. To begin with, Bungie.net Mobile is a native iOS app that lets you check your career Halo: Reach stats, keep tabs on your friends’ online performance, and bestow free stuff upon yourself and seven of your closest allies (roaming charges may apply, call your carrier for details). It’s also an easy way to stay connected to Bungie through our news feed. It really is just a beginning – our first, super cute baby step. We already have adult-type plans to keep updating Bungie.net Mobile with new features and enhancements in the months and years to come.

While there are some slightly better apps that track these stats in a little more detail, this is a very solid app for any Halo: Reach fan out there and I’d highly recommend downloading it.

Because there’s also an “online swag bag” . . .

That’s right. If you own an iPhone and enjoy Halo: Reach go download this app immediately. From this app you can now enable Blue Flames for your Spartan in Halo: Reach as well as enable the Star and Bungie Logo nameplates – things that were up until last night only available to Bungie Employees (or in the case of the Star nameplate, doing something that would get you awarded that nameplate straight from Bungie, like winning a Bungie Allstars competition). That’s right, if you own an iPhone u can haz Blue Flame right now. But fear not non-iOS users, from what I can tell it sounds like Bungie will be turning these items on for all Halo players before too long, it just sounds like iPhone users get this gift a little early.

SenadorKooch Can Haz Blue Flame

As a Halo fan since the release of the original, I have to say Bungie seems to really be going out with a bang as far as relenquishing control of this beloved franchise. Despite some issues we all may have had – or currently have – with Bungie’s Halo franchise (I’m looking at you, Armor Lock!), it looks like Bungie is really showing their appreciation to the fans who have made these games so immensley popular before they move on to their next endeavor!

Last week was a whirlwind. E3 had all the fun and flops you could imagine. It definitely left me with more questions than answers? How big will Mass Effect 3 actually be? Can Assassin’s Creed actually get better? Why the hell would Sony name their new toy Vita? Can you actually use a small TV to control a big one? And will Sony and Microsoft give up on motion gaming, or actually try to make it good?

We usually see a post-E3 lull in news as everyone re-watches the trailers and microscopes all of the screen shots. But sometimes news just happens, even without formal press conferences. So that’s mostly what today’s VGQH is going to contain. It might not all be sexy, but you’re probably a little chafed from last week anyway.

Three arrests were made in Spain last week in connection with the hacking of the PSN, a major bank, and the government systems for Algeria, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Iran, Libya, and New Zealand. Alicante, Almeria, and Barcelona were the sites of the arrests of three members of a “key cell” of Anonymous (names have not yet been released to the public). Yeah, that Anonymous. The ones that said they didn’t do it. These three allegedly can direct Anonymous activities. A server was also seized in Gijon, Spain, presumably as evidence. Clearly I’m not privy to the investigation procedure or the evidence in the case, but I’m really hoping they’ve got the right people and will hit them with all possible civil and criminal penalties. This was a high profile hacking. More than any other in my mind it has shown just how vulnerable we are to this type of criminal. A clear message of retribution by the criminal justice system could go a long way in the prevention of future attacks.

Unfortunately, the news hasn’t stopped the hacking community dead in its tracks. Codemasters (DiRT 3) website was also hacked late last week. The site was taken down immediately and they are rebuilding it from the ground up. As in Sony’s case though, too little too late. Some user information was compromised, including names, addresses, emails, passwords, IP addresses and XBox Live gamertags.

Bethesda also has fallen victim, with their community forums and stats site for Brink coming under attack. From the Bethesda Blog:

While no personal financial information or credit card data was obtained, the hackers may have gained access to some user names, email addresses, and/or passwords. As a precaution, we recommend that all our fans immediately change passwords on all our sites — including our community forums and the statistics site we maintain for Brink players. If your username/email address/password is similar to what you use on other sites, we recommend changing the password at those sites as well. As we don’t know what further plans the hackers may have, we suggest that you keep an eye out for suspicious emails and account activity.

Frankly, that’s enough free press about assholes. Let’s talk about games.

THQ has closed Kaos Studios. This is the studio that made Homefront, which sold 2.6 million units (over a million in the first week) and has a 70 on Metacritic. Seems like an odd time to close the division. This means the sequel (and a sequel is coming) will fall to THQ Montreal and Patrice Desilets, formerly of Ubisoft. That guy used to be the creative director of Assassin’s Creed. I’ll reserve judgment until I see results, but I doubt that will result in a 70 on Metacritic. I’ll say it goes to 90+, or bombs its way down to the 40s.

Wanna know how to make a geek smile? Here’s the equation: H.G. Wells + Patrick Stewart + XBLA or PSN = 2D sidescrolling War of the Worlds. Hell Yes! Stewart will be narrating the game, said to be inspired by Flashback and Out of This World. It will be published by Paramount and Other Interactive is developing. The game is scheduled for later this year.

Let’s pretend you haven’t already preordered Batman: Arkham City. Your friends are laughing at you, you feel depressed and don’t know why, and you’re convinced that there’s no need to order what is clearly going to be the greatest comic book game ever known. You are wrong. As if the sheer greatness of a follow up to the game that made Batman cooler than the combined efforts of Frank Miller and Christopher Nolan isn’t enough, Best Buy is even offering you a bonus. Apparently it’s not enough to play as the Caped Crusader and Catwoman! They want you to buy from them so you can play as Robin on two extra challenge maps. But, if Best Buy isn’t your thing, I understand. You could also order from GameStop for the Joker’s Carnival Challenge Map or from Amazon for an exclusive comic book. But those don’t come with an additional playable character. The game is coming October 18th, but you can get your orders in now.

Speaking of Amazon, that’s where I found the details on the Mass Effect 3 Collector’s Edition. This special set will include a metal case with Commander Shepard art, the soundtrack, a hardcover art book, a 4×6 one-of-a-kind lithographic print, a Dark Horse comic, fabric N7 patch, and in-game content. The DLC is practically worth the extra $20 alone, since you’ll get an extra appearance pack, mission, companion character, robotic dog, and four additional weapons. If this is anyhting like Mass Effect 2, those downloadable weapons are priceless on insanity difficulty. Oh yeah, I want that patch!

In other preorder news, DICE has caused a fanboy ruckus with their incentives for Battlefield 3. Preorders can get an extra map pack and some additional weapons that are usable in multiplayer. And that’s where the whining comes in. Some gamers are concerned they will be at a distinct disadvantage without those weapons. While the weapon pack has only been confirmed in the UK so far, DICE has stated that it will be available in other parts of the world as they finalize arrangements. They’ve also tried to mollify the whiners by explaining that these weapons are simply more varied, not more powerful. It could contribute to their fun, but not to their power. Also, the map pack will be available as paid DLC the same day it goes live for preorder codes.

One final bit on the preorder front, it’s time to put down your Dead Island deposits at GameStop. Your preorder will get you the Bloodbath Arena DLC and a blueprint for “The Ripper” for free. The DLC will be available from your online service as well ($10 / 800 MS Points). “The Ripper” is an in-game weapon utilizing a baseball bat and a buzz saw blade, sounds like a toy for the S&M crowd. Once you have the blueprint you’ll be able to share it with your friends.

That does it for the early edition this week. It’s not as exciting as E3 week but I do see a few rumors I’m hoping to confirm for Friday’s edition. It’s too early to tell right now how they’ll shape up and I don’t want to report it completely wrong.

Multiplatform:
Alice: Madness Returns (360, PS3, PC)
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (360, PS3, PC)
Record of Agarest War Zero (360, PS3)
Duke Nukem Forever: Balls of Steel Edition (360, PS3, PC)

XBox 360:
Child of Eden (PS3 version in September)
Wipeout: In the Zone

Nintendo:
Transformers: Dark of the Moon – Stealth Force Edition (Wii, 3DS)
Transformers: Dark of the Moon Autobots (DS)
Transformers: Dark of the Moon Decepticons (DS)
Deca Sports Extreme (3DS)
Cubic Ninja (3DS)
Balloon Pop 2 (3DS)
Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection (3DS)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (3DS)

When it comes to the Transformers games, I’m not a complete moron because of the way they’re listed. There are apparently different versions for the high end consoles, the Wii and 3DS, and the older DS models. No matter the platform, they’re all licensed, movie-based games and that should tell you a lot. But it’s always possible they’ll surprise you, especially since the last Transformers game was pretty good.

And somehow that’s not even the big title this week. After waiting forty years, Duke Nukem fans finally get to “make it rain” on fully clothed strippers again – and even make toilets flush for no reason other than scatological humor is supposedly funny. Sorry. You can probably tell I’m not a fan. But I recognize I’m in the minority on this one. The die hards have been waiting a long time for this and I honestly hope it’s worth the wait. I fear the Duke formula may not have aged well, but I never want to see a longtime fan be disappointed by a new release.

Of course, Duke only takes top honors because Ocarina of Time is really a re-release. Despite every hardcore Zelda fan already having played this game three dozen times, I actually predict this will outsell Duke. Even better for Nintendo, this is the first game for their new handheld that’s being called a must have. Good news for my wallet though. I’m actually not a fan of Zelda either. Mostly because I haven’t played anything newer than A Link to the Past. I loved that one, and the first NES game, but I don’t even remember the last time I boguht a Nintendo console.

A saving week for me, but not a bad showing for everyone else. There’s something for all kinds of gamers and all kinds of fans.

E3 was mindblowing. Just an incredible amount of game footage and screen shots. Some really huge announcements, others that were met with a resounding “meh.” Microsoft pushed Kinect. Sony pushed Move (and ignored a recent gap in online service you may have heard about). Nintendo showed us… something. I’m still not sure I understand the deal with using a TV to play games on a different TV. Tuesday’s VGQH had a simple breakdown of Sony and Microsoft’s press conferences. Shaz-Bot did a great series of articles about Nintendo’s presser so I’m not going to rehash it here. I will, however, give you a few more stories from the big event.

Starting with Square Enix, Final Fantasy XIII-2 has been pushed back from late 2011 into early 2012. I think it was originally announced as “Winter 2011” which has actually already passed. In the retail market “winter” usually means the beginning of the year. They say “holiday” if they mean November or December.

Despite the delay, congratulations to Square Enix. The Final Fantasy brand has been a staple in console gaming since the earliest days of the NES. It recently reached an incredible landmark: 100 million units shipped. That doesn’t necessarily mean all of those units were sold at retail (and definitely doens’t mean they’ve all been good), but it’s still a damn fine accomplishment.

Not much new was said about the game, but a synopsis (“Betrayed by those he trusted and hunted by the police, he finds himself at the centre of a dark conspiracy and must embark on a personal journey through a corrupt and twisted world, in his search for the truth.”) and a few screen shots of Hitman: Absolution were shown off by Ubisoft. My favorite shot:

Capcom showed some footage of Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. The game concept still seems derivative in my eyes, but it does look pretty. Many of us were waiting to see how the zombies would play out since the majority of combat will be between heavily armed human combatants. According to the footage, getting injured can cause the zombies to scent your blood, bringing them straight to your position.

Other highlights from Capcom were the rebooted DmC and Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition. Footage did show Dante killing demons, and even having his hair turn white with the Devil Trigger, so the reboot may not be so off the mark as a lot of fans thought. The latest iteration of SFIII will be downloadable this summer. If you need someone to explain what the game is, and why the names for it continually to get incredibly longer as time goes on, learn a little gaming history. The biggest announcement around the game is the use of GGPO netcode implementation – meaning it should be basically lag-free.

Tecmo showed off Ninja Gaiden 3. If this your game, you know what to expect: blood, action, and QTEs. Start stocking up on controllers now because you know you’ll be breaking them.

THQ showed a little bit of Metro: Last Light and Saints’ Row: The Third. Nothing new from either. Metro looks gorgeous, but I’ve yet to see any mechanics at work. Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places. Saints’ Row, on the other hand, looks ridiculous. When they can show me something besides a dildo sword I might pay attention. I’m just not sold on and over the top comedic version of San Andreas. I’d rather see something original.

Konami also showed a few titles, including NeverDead, Otomedius Excellent, Skullgirls, and Blades of Time (sort of a sequel to X-Blade) to sate your appetite for bizarre anime type stuff. It all looks appropriately insane. Geared more toward the North American audience was the Students Showcase winner at IGF 2010, Puddle, headed for XBLA and PSN this year. They also showed Zombie Apocalypse 2 and PES 2012 (soccer, if anyone cares). Nothing spectacular from either one.

Konami’s top story is Silent Hill: Downpour. They’ve finally released the basic plot of the story. Murphy Pendleton is a convict transferring prisons. When his bus crashes he decides to bolt. Bad idea, even prison can’t be worse than running straight into the town of Silent Hill. They also promised free-roaming and exploration that can lead to side quests. Oh, and it will be running on Unreal Engine 3.

Sony and Q Games have announced their latest release for PSN, PixelJunk Sidescroller. The game is set for release this summer. I’m a little disappointed to see it’s a shooter, a la Gradius or Life Force. While the entire PixelJunk series has been great, I was really hoping they meant it was a side scrolling platformer. For my money though, the best part of their games is the simplicity in titles. Capcom could take lessons in brevity from these guys when they name their fighting games.

Sony also released a few bits of information outside of the major electronics show. Namely that Motorstorm Apocalypse has been canceled in Japan. The game was deemed too insensitive in light of the recent tragedy. I have mixed feelings on this concept. There is a certain element of moral uprightness in canceling a game that could bring up hard memories or other emotional pain in the light of such a tragic series of events. On the other hand, it’s a game about racing cars through a fictional universe. As the country struggles to bring things back to normal, gamers want to play games. Which means there’s also an element of insult to injury for those looking forward to the game.

There’s also a kind of funny story about Sony that really only affects European readers. It seems hackers aren’t the only problems they’ve had with their network. Beyond Good & Evil HD was recently released on the EU PSN, at a higher price than its XBLA counterpart. You can only imagine the fan reaction on the internet. Turns out it was an honest mistake in the pricing and Sony has since corrected it. More than that, anyone who bought it anyway will be receiving a refund. Still waiting on a US release, but keep an eye on the cost before you buy.

One final word out of Sony is leaving me baffled. It seems that Home “hit a new record in terms of weekly unique users,” according to a Sony Executive, Jack Buser. This has been since the service was restored along with the rest of the network after the hacker outage. Two problems here. One, Home is pointless. Two, these numbers are falsely inflated because of the 100 free items that were offered in the Welcome Back package and the promise of Sony’s E3 press conference being live streamed into the theater. The streaming press conference worked for almost no one by the way. It was full of “network error” messages and many users went to their computers to find a functioning stream on the web. As for the 100 free items, now that you’ve all jumped in and got them, what are you going to do with them? They only work inside Home, and there’s no reason to go there.

Considering that last Sony story was basically an editorial anyway, I’ll skip my normal closing comments. Thanks for reading. Check back on Tuesday. I’m hoping to get more details on the games that were just glossed over in all the hoopla from LA.

GameSpot got an exclusive interview with localization producer Eric Petersen.  In the interview they spend about 20 minutes discussing the game showing off the different aspects, and avoid ruining any major story elements.

The game looks simply fantastic, as good as and possibly better than Twilight Princess.  The huge world above the cloud is nice looking, but I hope they can insert some form of excitement into navigating it. I’m more than happy to use the clouds to move between temples and towns, but  the biggest complaint I had with Windwaker, and Spirit Tracks was the lengthy travelling, (especially spirit tracks). During late night game sessions I found myself dozing during the train rides and missing things that needed to be done, or running into the evil phantom trains and being forced to relive the nightmare. (By relive the nightmare I mean of course start the train ride over again.  I loved the dungeons but they could have made the game navigation interesting, not.. well a necessary evil.  The bird riding looks like a solid attempt to do exactly that, and I hope it works out. If they don’t require a flight with the same four or five control changes, and maybe throw some interesting combat in-between they could do exactly that.  It would then be perfection.  The motion plus integration made the sword play look a lot more realistic.  Twilight Princess had the basic swat motions going on which made the motion controls feel more like an afterthought, and less like an integrated combat experience.  This looks as if the controls will be more intuitive and follow your hand motions much more fluidly.  Anywho I’ll stop rambling about it.  The game looks gorgeous and here’s the video.  Put your thoughts below!

Fans of Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions should be happy to see the same development team coming back for a second round with the ol’ Web-Head, and bringing Spider-Man 2099 along for the ride again.

The new trailer for Spider-Man: Edge of Time debuted at E3 and you can check it out above. This game will feature some pretty creative and dynamic game play where in you will see how the actions you take as Spider-Man in the past affects the world of Spider-Man 2099 simultaneously.

Playing the roles of Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099, Spider-Man: Edge of Time propels gamers on a high-octane, adrenaline-fueled adventure in which the two versions of the heroic web-slinger must urgently work together across time to save each other and prevent a disaster that ultimately leads to the death of Amazing Spider-Man.

Spider-Man: Edge of Time will be hitting game shelves later this year.

Rather than making more individual posts for each game Nintendo showed off today, I decided to add all of the ones I could find, and I’ll add my snap judgement after each. Enjoy all of the eye candy, and let us know what you think!

First up is Super Mario for the 3DS. I’m looking forward to this one, and the return of Tanooki Mario is quite welcome.

Plenty of screens to be had with it as well.

Next up, we have Luigi’s Mansion 2 for 3DS. This one is dear to me, as I am a huge Luigi fan (gotta love the underdog). I may have to buy a 3DS just for this one…

Staying on the Mario side of things, we have Paper Mario for 3DS. The Paper Mario Games have always been a delight, I’m sure this one won’t be an exception.

Moving on, we have Kid Icarus: Uprising for 3DS. This was shown last year, but now we know more of the story, and there is multiplayer, which makes use of Augmented Reality, which is pretty danged cool.

No wealth of screenshots for this one, but the video kind of speaks for itself.

Finally, we have StarFox 3D. Come on, it’s StarFox in it’s purest, space shooting form. What’s not to love? New additions include making a fool of yourself in multiplayer, using the camera. You can also alternate between button and touch controls, which is pretty nice.

There you have it. Tons of new stuff from Nintendo. While everyone had a pretty good showing, I’m willing to say that Nintendo “won”. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m taking a break, as I have mushrooms dancing in my head at this point!

Ever since the days of the SNES, the Mario Kart series has been one of Nintendo’s staple franchises. With the advent of the 3DS, that hasn’t changed, but what has, is how you’ll be racing. Not only will you be immersed in glass-free 3D environments, first the first time ever, you and your favorite Mario franchise character will be racing on the track, underwater, and getting some serious airtime!

With the addition of the hanglider, Mario Kart for the 3DS adds another layer of strategy in your racing. As shown in the trailer below, it seems you can take multiple paths, depending on if you prefer to take to the air, or even go underwater! For the first time, entering the water doesn’t necessarily impede your progress! Another new addition is the ability to customize certain aspects of your Kart. Check it out:

Now, it difficult to tell how the game will actually play, but judging by the above video, the actual racing seems more in line with Mario Kart DS as opposed to Mario Kart Wii, which is fine by me. There is some track re-use from MK DS and Wii as well. Mario Kart 3DS is due this Holiday season. Til then, drool over these screen shots.