The Digital Rights Madness around Spore has started an internet war. After demonstrating their power earlier this year with the "Mass Effect Sex-box" author, a gang of ruthless Amazon reviewers have struck Spore (and to a lesser extent the Galactic Edition) down to a paltry 1.5 out of 5 stars. Here's what those Negative Nancies are saying:

• Dumbed down experience and draconian DRM
• DRM is a show stopper
• Spore: I Refuse to Buy Until DRM is Patched Out
• No Way, No How, No DRM
• drm makes me a sad panda
• $49.99 too much for game rental

Notice a trend here? The Spore DRM, so far as we know, works exactly like Mass Effect's system: You have 3 activations for installation, and after that you will reportedly have to call EA for more (and uninstalls won't work to raise that number). Of course, those reviews haven't stopped Spore from being #1 in video game sales on Amazon (Galactic Edition at #12), and we doubt any negative reviews will. As Will Wright aptly told MTV Multiplayer, "We would rather have the Metacritic and sales of Sims 2 than the Metacritic and sales of Half-Life."

"Huh, what time is it?" asked the webcomic wrapup as it crawled out of bed, reaching for its Pip Boy alarm clock that did not yet exist.

"It's 5 o'clock," said the omniscient narrator.

"Why is there so much sunlight, then?"

"It's 5 o'clock P.M."

"Oh no, I was supposed to get this up earlier today!"

"Correction, it's Sunday."

"Oh no, I'm a day late!"

"Correction, it's Sunday, September 7. You're over a week late."

"... @!#?@!"

Here are our picks for the week's best game-related webcomic. Polling after the break; be sure to vote for your favorite!

The JoConjugal Visit (Penny Arcade)
"I bought a video game ..." (Dork Tower)
Quiet Time (Robot Martini)
A New Power-Up (2P Start) [Note: If broken, use this link]
Service with a Smile (Dueling Analogs)
Darth Cynic (Digital Unrest)
My Sanity is in Jeopardy! (MNC)
Heretic (Castle Vidcons)

We turned on Too Human this morning (no, really) and found an auto update. Hoping it might have shortened the Valkyrie death sequence, we immediately unequipped all weapons and armor and ran naked (figuratively) into battle, only to be faced with the same 15.5-second consequence. We also thought the menu screen loaded faster, but that is all apparently just in our heads.

In a forum post this morning, Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack revealed that the update "fixed some connectivity issues and was done prior to release. It does not contain any balance or gameplay changes." Better luck next time.

That's right, folks, this week we've gone recursive. Who says we can't be our own special edition? Here's what we'll be playing this weekend. Be sure to let us know what games will be occupying your time!

• Alexander Sliwinski: With my upgraded PC, I've been checking out some higher end games from the last three years. FEAR, not so bad. Black and White 2, gorgeous but flawed. The big plan for this weekend is Spore ... now I just need to get a copy somewhere.
• Andrew Yoon: Braid. Second ending.
• Christopher Grant: I've returned from a brief respite in the woods, but I wasn't alone. Something else came back with me. Specifically, my appreciation of the very portable Professor Layton & The Curious Village. I've got 30-some puzzles left and an intense desire to crush them using little more than my carefully honed intellect and a plastic stylus. Also: I've been winding my way through an advance copy of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed – I should be able to wrangle a couple hours this weekend to polish that one off. Still in various stages of completion, waiting to return to favor: Castle Crashers, Siren, Fable 1.
• Griffin McElroy: My new roomie recently hooked up his slimline PS2 to our big screen, so I've been playing some classics as of late -- Shadow of the Colossus, Tony Hawk's Underground (you know, the last good one), and a copy of Chrono Cross I recently found at this awesome used game store in Chicago. Also trying to hit the level cap with Mr. Orange in Castle Crashers, and anxiously waiting for GameFly to deliver me into pure pinata pleasure. ... Also, for the theme: perhaps something football related, as the season just started? Or perhaps, the inaugural use of the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, which could ostensibly create a micro black hole, instantly destroying our world on Sept. 10? WRUP: The World Ends with Large Hadron Collider Edition?
• Kevin Kelly: I will be playing this thing called "finish your damn PAX posts while doing interviews and watching movies at the Toronto Film Festival." By the way I highly recommend The Brothers Bloom. Great movie. If they made a game out of that, I would die happy.
  
• Kyle Orland: I'm also looking for a copy of Spore to see whether it's a new paradigm in gaming or, as the meta-review seems to indicate, a disappointment. Also hoping to get some more time with The Last Guy and maybe finally take a look at Castle Crashers.
  
• James Ransom-Wiley: Goin' down the shore for one last weekend. Friends are asking me to bring that thing the kids are doing these days ... The Wii.
• Jason Dobson is still moving.
  
• Justin McElroy: If I can bring myself to ignore the title, I'm going to be playing some Infinite Undiscovery in between checking on my new and improved pinata garden.
• Ludwig Kietzmann: I hope to double my efforts in stopping the evil Count Waltz in Eternal Sonata, provided I can even manage to switch on my Xbox 360 without instantly firing up Geometry Wars 2. I also plan to feign struggle against and almost immediately succumb to the desire to play through the post-Trophy Uncharted. Again.
• Randy Nelson: Like several of my fellow Joystiqers, I'll be tracking down a copy of Spore (no, my attendance at last night's launch party hosted by Mr. Wright did not come with "perks"). I also plan to brush up on my SOCOM skills thanks to the Confrontation beta, although I won't be playing it with the benefit of Sony's nifty new Bluetooth headset. Also: Castle Crashers (go orange!) and The Last Guy (go Himalayan zombie hero!).
  
• Ross Miller: I've got a tough choice to make. I've finally caught up on school work (thanks, PAX!) and PAX articles (thanks, school!), and my copy of Too Human came in early this week – a bit late, yes, but now I get to play it without all the controversy and anger and hype. So I'll finally be trying it out. In between hours-long sessions of Spore, that is.

Joining Hendrix, Ozzy and others, Sting will be walking around the virtual concert halls of Guitar Hero World Tour. According to the press release, you can play as Sting during the vocal career "or play alongside him" in the Police track, "Demolition Man." Additionally, three songs from Tool (who are not bringing their likenesses to the game) have been confirmed: Parabola, Schism, Vicarious.

We now know about 65 tracks of the reported "over 85" tracks. With about seven weeks to go before its October 26 North American launch, when do we get to learn the rest of the tracklist? More importantly, where's our virtual likeness of Lars Ulrich?

Intel is rumored to be heavily courting Microsoft for inclusion of its high-performance GPU Larrabee in the next-generation Xbox, according to The Inquirer. Its source states that Intel is willing to make a lot of major concessions, the logic being that inclusion in the console would compel game makers to develop for the chipset, thus increasing interest in the consumer PC market and making a dent in the GPU market dominated by ATI and Nvidia. It's certainly not a far-fetched scheme; we'd be surprised if Intel didn't at least make a pitch to Microsoft, regardless of the actual terms.

The Xbox 360 currently uses a PowerPC-based CPU from IBM and a GPU designed by ATI. Should this rumor prove true, our first reaction is "cool" and our second is to wonder about backwards compatibility, which became an issue given that the original Xbox's GPU was based on a different, Nvidia-based architecture in comparison to its successor.

[Via Tweaktown; Thanks, Tigerj]

Microsoft is running an "Extended Play Download Days" promotion between now and the end of October, with select downloadable content discounted for six Xbox 360 titles. Sure, half of the promotion consists of Beautiful Katamari accessories and stages, but we've also got Forza Motorsport 2, Mass Effect, Guitar Hero 3, Lost Odyssey and a deep discount for Oblivion Shivering Isles (from $30 to $20). Not coincidentally, today also marks the first day of the new Xbox 360 price drop.

Last week during PAX 2008, we sat down with Hothead COO and Penny Arcade Adventures Producer Joel DeYoung as he guided us through Episode 2 and improvements to the engine. The gist of it is: if you liked Episode 1, you'll like Episode 2 that much more. Here's the rundown from our talks:

• Highlighting points of interest has been made easier! "If you have your proximity putting you close enough to 2 or 3 things, you can slide through that with bumpers," said DeYoung.
  
• There are now difficulty levels, including an Insane Mode (unlockable only after beating the game). Special collectibles and pickups are only available if you play Insane Mode. Comparatively, Episode 1's difficulty is "a little easier" than medium.
• All the weapons have been replaced. Tycho gets a shotgun, Gabe has new fist upgrades and your player now possesses -- wait for it -- a hoe! Also changed are the special attack minigames.
  
• You now have, among other new items, a revive potion. Healing won't be enough to bring your troops back to life. "Just adds a little bit of depth to it," said DeYoung.
• The real-time reaction for defense has been made more obvious (e.g. "Block!" now appears when you need to push block), but nothing analogous for attacking has been added.

More after the break.

We were given one hour with Fallout 3 at this year's PAX, and we don't mean some pared down, nerfed, demo-ized level; this was the full version. Not only that, but the Bethesda folks showed it to us in the tricked out Fallout 3 Airstream Trailer, complete with a nuclear family peering in.

Lead designer Emil Pagliarulo started us out roughly an hour into the game, when you exit the vault for the very first time. We missed the whole "growing up" phase in order to rush right into the action. We didn't mind. but what of our first 18 or so years? Maybe you start out on the cellular level, and fight your way out in a glorious Spore/Fallout hybrid. Your guess is as good as ours.

Square Enix's proposal to buy an Itagaki-less Tecmo has been rejected. According to Reuters, the Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive publisher instead said that it would merge with Koei, making it entirely within the realm of possibility that we'll soon be playing Dynasty Warriors Xtreme Kingdom Beach Games.

Tecmo said Koei would offer "a greater chance of boosting corporate value" (our analysis: Koei wouldn't overshadow Tecmo like Square Enix would). The Final Fantasy publisher, which initially offered $206 million for a merger "on friendly terms," said it would try to (infinite un)discover more details on the Koei merger in order to figure out Tecmo's rationale and then decide what to do next. This isn't the last (remnant) we've heard of it.

While Hothead is busy pimping its upcoming Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode 2, let's not forget about its other, simpler-titled project DeathSpank. The company has released three new teaser trailers for the snarky title ("Fight" is shown above), built from the ground up with Joystiq's own Ludwig Kietzmann in mind as the target demographic.

During last weekend's Penny Arcade Expo, Hothead COO Joel DeYoung said he considered the game a "more Diablo-esque" episodic action RPG with ample amounts of creator Ron Gilbert's humor, "lampooning video game space and the idea of the video game hero that takes himself too seriously." The game is not using PAA's Torque engine. More information about DeathSpank should be coming "soon," he said. After the break, check out the "Item" and "Armor" trailer. (Spoiler: Two of these three videos use the phrase "Thong of Justice.")

Of the 100 or so cosplayers we saw (and snapped pictures of) at PAX 2008, we've whittled down the gallery to our favorite 15 costumes. Now we want to know who you thought was the best cosplayer:

During PAX 2008 we had a chance to sit down (on very comfortable bean bags, mind you) and talk with Felicia Day, producer and star of The Guild and star of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Day also sang "Still Alive" with Jonathan Coulton the first night of the convention. Some notes from the interview:

• Filming for Season 2 will begin next month. HD cameras will be used, not so much for web streaming but for potential download and the Season 2 DVD. The 13- to 15-episode season will be "a little bit longer," approximately 5 to 6 minutes apiece.
• Day has a level 66 Warlock and level 63 Priest. As an example of life imitating art, Day explains that her fans from the show and the actors who play Zaboo, Vork and Bladezz all play in a guild together.
• She signed the chest of one Dr. Horrible cosplayer and saw another with "actual Wonderflonium." (Warning: Interview contains spoilers.)
• Day guest stars as the patient in episode 2 of the upcoming season of House, but she does not have Lupus.
• Not mentioned: Her demand that Tycho groom her.

[MP3] Download the interview

(Note: When the interview starts, Day is talking about a planned live introduction for a showing of The Guild at Dragon*Con the day before.)

Serving as a great anecdote for the old saying, "You don't know what you got 'til it's gone," an Activision representative has confirmed that Guitar Hero: World Tour will be lacking Rock Band 2's party-friendly "No Fail" option, either as a menu option or as a cheat code. Also interesting is that you can't save your bandmates should one fail; instead, you can comparatively miss more notes than in RB and stay alive.

The lack of a "No Fail" option certainly isn't going to be a game-changer -- after all, its predecessors (including RB1) sold very well without it. And although the virtual rock elitist might scoff at the notion that it's now harder to fail songs, GH:WT does have the added bonus of presenting a detailed analysis of your performance after each song (we've placed an exemplary image after the break Update: Now it really is after the break). We'll have more on our time at PAX 2008 with the game, specifically the drums, later this week.

A few hours before PAX 2008 opened its doors to the public last Friday, we had a chance to speak with Penny Arcade creators Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik -- for simplicity's sake referred to here by their respective pseudonyms Tycho and Gabe -- about the Expo, its future expansion, the intensity of Jenga and the Duke Nukem Forever Omegathon round that never was. Audio embedded below; we've also gone ahead and transcribed highlights from the interview. (Note: To make it easier to read, we've put Gabe's name in red and Tycho's name in blue.)

[MP3] Download the Interview