Last night the votes were tabulated and the awards were given out for G4’s G-phoria. The votes were cast by the fans on the G4 website or by text message. Games had to be released between July 31, 2007 and July 31, 2008. If you want to blame anyone for the crappy selections, you have no one to blame but yourselves (for either having bad taste or not voting at all).

And the winners are:

Game of the Year
Halo 3

Favorite System
Xbox 360

Best Graphics
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

Best New Character
Niko Bellic – Grand Theft Auto IV

Best Party Game
Rock Band

Best Strategy Game
Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution

Best Sports Game
skate.

Best Action Game
Grand Theft Auto IV

Best Shooter
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Best Racing Game
Mario Kart Wii

Best Role-Playing Game
Mass Effect

Most Original
Portal

Best Online Multiplayer Game
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Best Downloadable Content
Rock Band

Best Handheld Game
God of War: Chains of Olympus

Best Voice Acting
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

Best Soundtrack
Rock Band

Game Most Deserving of an Uwe Boll Movie
Turok

Longest Lasting Game presented by Stride
Grand Theft Auto IV

(08.04.08)
King of Clubs (Wii)
Summer Atheletics (Wii)
Ys I+II (Wii)
Wild West Guns (Wii)

(08.05.08)
Beijing 2008 – The Official Video Game of the Olympic Games (PC)
Ford Racing: Off Road (PC)
B-Boy (PS2)
Hannah Montana: Spotlight World Tour (PS2)
Monster Madness: Grave Danger (PS3)
Baseball Mogul 2009 (PC)
Little League World Series 2008 (Wii, DS)
Crash Time (360)
GRID (DS)
Puzzler Collection (DS)
The Cheetah Girls: Passport to Stardom (DS)
Quick Yoga Training (DS)

(08.06.08)
Braid (360)

(08.08.08)
Fate: Undiscovered Realms (PC)

The game is written by comic vets Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. To keep up with the realism style that the MK series has always preferred over the cartoony look of the Street Fighter series, MK vs DC will be powered by the Unreal 3 engine.

The list of characters is still under wraps for now, but we were able to confirm Batman, Flash, Catwoman, Captain Marvel and Superman on the DC side as well as Liu Kang, Scorpion, Sub Zero, Shang Tsung and Sonya Blade for MK.

Step one: Watch the trailer below.

Step Two: Read comics till November 17th (release date).

Despite being turned away in April, the highly acclaimed game Portal will be make it’s way onto Xbox Live in the near future under the semi new name Portal Still Alive.

The story will remain the same as the original, but there will be additional puzzles, levels, achievements and cake. No word yet on the possibility of the game also seeing life on PS3 or PC.

Fans and GlaDOS can now have their cake and eat it too.

Yay for progress!

As an added benefit, there is a little secret that I have coded into the new site. Can you guess? (Here’s a hint, it has to do with web comics.) The aforementioned secret isn’t complete yet, but it is useable.

In any case, no background yet. (Joe hated the original one, and the last one was too girly.)

So, let’s have a contest! Email your background image to dan.spacemonkeys@gmail.com, and the winner will be obvious

Shigeru Miyamoto has announced a new Pikmin. No loud flashy displays or shows, just words uttered during an E3 2008 Nintendo Developer Roundtable.

“We’re making Pikmin.”

Linky here.

Lookie here! Champions Online by the same makers as COH/V, is on the horizon to fulfill all your not so kinky spandex fantasies!

Seriously, look!

Sad new: you’ll have to wait till Spring ‘09

Do you hear that? Those are the tears of Sony Entertainment of America, Japanese Xbox 360
owners and people who bought a PS3 figuring that it was the only way to get FFXIII. My condolences.

OH! Game trailer, sweet!

Scheduled to be released on September 14 2008, Rock Band 2 looks like it will not be a reinvention of itself, but rather just an update to fix the kinks that had lodged itself in the original one. For example, your character will no longer be limited to playing one instrument anymore, your corset wearing goth chick can be singing lead vocals one track and slapping the strings on bass for the next song. World Tour Online will be greatly improved as well. The finally got rid of the Band Leader crap which pretty much forced someone to ALWAYS be on drums. Mostly, that was Joe.

According to a Joystiq interview with Rock Band 2 senior designer Dan Teasdale, some of the content from the original game will be transferable for a minimal fee (under $5), but not all of it. Licensing issues are preventing it all to be transfered, but hey with the next of songs, it’s pretty much out with the old in with the new. Oh and your downloaded content will of course be transfered.

Oh more stuff! Rock Band 2 will allow other manufacturers to make peripherals!

But enough about that, here’s the meat and potatoes of this post, the set list!

Rock Band 2 On-Disc Track List:

1. AC/DC “Let There Be Rock”
2. AFI “Girl’s Gone Grey”
3. Alanis Morissette “You Oughta Know”
4. Alice in Chains “Man in the Box”
5. Allman Brothers “Ramblin’ Man”
6. Avenged Sevenfold “Almost Easy”
7. Bad Company “Shooting Star”
8. Beastie Boys “So Whatcha Want”
9. Beck “E-Pro”
10. Bikini Kill “Rebel Girl”
11. Billy Idol “White Wedding Pt. I”
12. Blondie ” One Way or Another”
13. Bob Dylan “Tangled Up in Blue”
14. Bon Jovi “Livin’ on a Prayer”
15. Cheap Trick “Hello There”
16. Devo “Uncontrollable Urge”
17. Dinosaur Jr. “Feel the Pain”
18. Disturbed “Down with the Sickness”
19. Dream Theater “Panic Attack”
20. Duran Duran “Hungry Like the Wolf”
21. Elvis Costello “Pump It Up”
22. Fleetwood Mac “Go Your Own Way”
23. Foo Fighters “Everlong”
24. Guns N’ Roses “Shackler’s Revenge”
25. Interpol “PDA”
26. Jane’s Addiction “Mountain Song”
27. Jethro Tull “Aqualung”
28. Jimmy Eat World “The Middle”
29. Joan Jett “Bad Reputation”
30. Journey “Anyway You Want It”
31. Judas Priest “Painkiller”
32. Kansas “Carry On Wayward Son”
33. L7 “Pretend We’re Dead”
34. Lacuna Coil “Our Truth”
35. Linkin Park “One Step Closer”
36. Lit “My Own Worst Enemy”
37. Lush “De-Luxe”
38. Mastodon “Colony of Birchmen”
39. Megadeth “Peace Sells”
40. Metallica ” Battery”
41. Mighty Mighty Bosstones “Where’d You Go”
42. Modest Mouse “Float On”
43. Motorhead “Ace of Spades”
44. Nirvana “Drain You”
45. Norman Greenbaum “Spirit in the Sky”
46. Panic at the Disco “Nine in the Afternoon”
47. Paramore “That’s What You Get”
48. Pearl Jam “Alive”
49. Presidents of the USA “Lump”
50. Rage Against the Machine “Testify”
51. Ratt “Round & Round”
52. Red Hot Chili Peppers “Give it Away”
53. Rise Against “Give it All”
54. Rush “The Trees”
55. Silversun Pickups “Lazy Eye”
56. Smashing Pumpkins “Today”
57. Social Distortion “I Was Wrong”
58. Sonic Youth “Teenage Riot”
59. Soundgarden “Spoonman”
60. Squeeze “Cool for Cats”
61. Steely Dan “Bodhitsattva”
62. Steve Miller Band “Rock’n Me”
63. Survivor “Eye of the Tiger”
64. System of a Down “Chop Suey”
65. Talking Heads “Psycho Killer”
66. Tenacious D “Master Exploder”
67. Testament “Souls of Black”
68. The Donnas “New Kid in School”
69. The Go-Go’s “We Got the Beat”
70. The Grateful Dead ” Alabama Getaway”
71. The Guess Who “American Woman”
72. The Muffs “Kids in America”
73. The Offspring “Come Out & Play (Keep ‘em Separated)”
74. The Replacements “Alex Chilton”
75. The Who “Pinball Wizard”

Bonus Songs
76. Abnormality “Visions”
77. Anarchy Club “Get Clean”
78. Bang Camaro “Night Lies”
79. Breaking Wheel “Shoulder to the Plow”
80. The Libyans “Neighborhood”
81. The Main Drag “A Jagged Gorgeous Winter”
82. Speck “Conventional Lover”
83. The Sterns “Supreme Girl”
84. That Handsome Devil “Rob the Prez-O-Dent”

A 10-year-old girl in England who is reportedly 4′9″ and 6 stone (84 lbs) was called “fat” by Wii Fit (even though that term is not used) in their BMI test. Her parents are pissed, and now the spokesperson from the National Obesity Forum (remember, it would be England’s National forum) wants to ban the game from children.

If you want more on what’s been said and everything, you can go ahead and read it, but here’s the reason I’m posting this:

Something in that article is wrong.

I went up to the CDC’s website and found these nifty little calculators. The first one is for adults, the second is for children. So, I assumed that maybe the game doesn’t have a separate calculator for children. So I did it in the adult calculator. And the result was a BMI of 18.2, which is underweight (18.5 is normal). So I did it again with the children’s calculator. I assumed that the test was done today, on the girl’s 10th birthday (giving it an exact 10 years). This time, the result of 18.2 put the girl in the 69th percentile for her age/weight/gender. The 5th through the 85th percentiles are healthy weight. Which means that, by the information given, the girl is not overweight.

This leads us to four options:

1) The game was wrong. Out of all the options, I find this one the least likely. I mean, if there were glitches in the game, surely we’d've heard about it by now, wouldn’t we? No, if it were an error in the game, this wouldn’t be an isolated incident.

2) The parents are lying. Everyone thinks that their child is “perfect,” and no parent would want to admit to their child’s actual weight, if they are overweight. So this option is a bit more likely than the first.

3) The newspaper purposefully changed the information. According to my roommate, the Daily Mail isn’t exactly know for it’s accuracy in reporting. Using the calculator, I found out that that same girl, if she were 93 lbs instead of 84 lbs, would be in the “at risk of becoming overweight.” Perhaps the step-father’s statement had been “six and a half stone” instead of “only six stone” (93 lbs would be approx. 6.6 stone), and the paper took some “liberties” in their reporting. I think this one’s a little more likely than the last.

4) User error. The pad could’ve been broken and not weight her correctly. Maybe the girl had her backpack on still, or was holding something that made the sensor think she weighed more. I highly doubt the paper would’ve checked on that, and the parents were probably too offended to think of testing it again to check it. This is probably tied with #3 on most likely.

So there you have it. Should children be “banned” from playing a fitness game? Especially one that, I believe, does denote itself as “for entertainment purposes only”? I’ll let you make your own decision.