zelda

If you've ever petitioned Facebook to add a "Dislike" button to the site, you might get a kick out of a new antisocial networking site that lets your friends anonymously rag on you from the privacy of their homes. Failin.gs is currently in beta, but soon you'll be able to hit your friends up for anonymous comments about your mundane status updates. No, it doesn't integrate with Facebook itself (thankfully), but hopefully it'll force you to think twice about telling everyone what you had for dinner last night.

After 30 years of the same boring design, Heinz finally wised up and redesigned its ketchup packets. Fans of fast food will be treated to a new packet that opens up on BOTH ends: the top features the same tear-off perforation, but the new bottom opens to reveal a section for dunking your fries, which happens to be one of the most popular applications for the condiment! Check out this video on CBSNews.com for more details and look for the new packets coming to fast food joints near you!

Last week's viral "Post your doppelganger to Facebook" meme might violate Facebook's terms of service, but we're featuring our own celebrity photos on today's episode anyway...with a twist. Check out our cartoon doppelgangers above and let us know what you think: does Wilson really look like the Asian kid from "Up?" Does Jeff turn into a green-faced ogre at night? And should I seriously consider growing a goatee? Sound off by leaving us a voice mail at 1-866-404-CNET or send an e-mail to the404(at)cnet{dot}com.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Today is our first day back from CES 2010 in Las Vegas, and we're pretty lucky to return with our sanity (and organs) fully intact.

On today's episode of The 404 Podcast, we spend the first half wrapping up our coverage and giving you an impromptu slideshow of our experience broadcasting live from the CNET stage.

Of course, we have to spend some time thanking everyone involved with the back-end production, and of course, the dedicated listeners who showed up to watch the live show.

A special thanks goes out to Blake Stevenson for helping us design the very first The 404 stickers and Props Guy Jim for hooking us up with The 404 temporary tattoos!

We'll let you know how your mitts on that stuff very soon, so stay tuned!

The second half is all about Andrew WK, or at least the idea of him. AWK is under the media spotlight regarding a video confessional lecture in London last month, where the artist openly admitted that Andrew WK is simply a fabrication of a group of individuals in "the spirit of commerce."

Andrew claimed that "I'm not the guy you've seen from the I Get Wet album...I'm not that same person. I don't just mean that in a philosophical or conceptual way. It's not the same person at all."

He then goes on to tell us that he actually auditioned for the role of Andrew WK and gives little detail after that; watch the video here. We have so many questions about who actually wrote the album, when the current Andrew WK donned the mantle, and why this story sounds suspiciously reminiscent of The Dread Pirate Roberts from "The Princess Bride." We're going to try to get Andrew back on The 404 to chat with us about the controversy, but the bottom line is that Jeff and I support the music and the message behind it, regardless of who performs it.

It's good to be back! We'll go back to our normal format with a Calls From the Public segment tomorrow morning, so give us a call at 1-866-404-CNET and tell us what's on your mind!

While plenty of people are still readily awaiting a sequel to Mario Kart DS or New Super Mario Bros., it didn't take Nintendo much time at all to shoot off a follow-up to its 2007 Nintendo DS Zelda adventure, The Phantom Hourglass.

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, set 100 years after Phantom Hourglass and set in a very similar cell-shaded cartoonish universe, at first looks like it might be a pale shadow of the first touch-screen DS game, swapping out train travel for long boat voyages. We were a little surprised and skeptical when the game was first announced, especially since train travel sounds a lot more passive than sailing. After riding around with Link for a weekend, did our opinion change?

Scott: I admit, I was originally dubious about Zelda: Spirit Tracks' ability to be as good as its predecessor, Phantom Hourglass. However, to my pleasant surprise, Spirit Tracks is not only a true sequel to Phantom Hourglass, it's also equally good. In fact, in some ways it's even better.

To address first: the trains in this game are set on tracks that traverse a series of small towns and other locations, and pulling up at destinations is essentially the same as docking your boat in Phantom Hourglass. Actually, the train controls are a bit simpler to operate on the go. The rest of the game, including its focus on a central mega-dungeon that unlocks secrets throughout, is very reminiscent of the first DS Zelda. That's not so bad, though--we'd take more of Phantom Hourglass and less of many other crappy DS games any day of the week.

The storyline, which features evil trains, floating towers, and a floating Zelda spirit that helps haunt statues to do your bidding in co-op puzzle solving, is both bizarre and clever, and is closest to the N64 cult classic Majora's Mask in terms of how it feels thematically. Nintendo's greatest achievement is how it adopts charming dialogue and characters to sell us this absurd tale and not have it feel stale or stilted--it's what makes the Zelda games more approachable to a newcomer than some of Square Enix's numerous RPGs.

After a few hours of play, the train riding aspect fades into the background, and Spirit Tracks is about the things all Zelda games are about: finding small towns, unlocking side quests, getting weapons, conquering dungeon puzzles. It's as classic as any Zelda game before it.… Read more

On this week's Digital City, we tackle one of the most contentious issues of our time -- Mac vs. PC -- as Dan offers an enlightened path to peace for both camps. We also hear about some free municipal Wi-Fi for the new Times Square pedestrian mall; a sweet TV/PS3 combo deal at Best Buy; and discuss the fate of the vaporware-like CrunchPad.

Later, Scott laments the lack of Microsoft synergy in the Zune gaming business model; we check out some new game releases, including Zelda: Spirit Tracks and The Saboteur; and debate the ethics of adding adults-only … Read more

This is what we get for calling our show "The 404." Despite literally everything going wrong on today's show (sorry, live listeners!), we get it in gear for what turns out to be a hilarious show, thanks to CNET reporter Caroline McCarthy who comes in and saves the day. Today, Jeff previews us on the latest Nintendo Wii games, including the new Wii Fit Plus, Super Mario Bros, Wii Sports Resort, and more!

Caroline McCarthy of CNET News' The Social comes on the show today to give us her unique take on a bunch of different stories. First off, we want to apologize to ALL of our beloved live listeners. For one reason or another, our broadcasting engine pooped out and we were unable to broadcast live. All is not lost, however--you can still definitely download or watch the stream here! Rest assured that Jason Howell, aka Superman, is on the job. Thanks, Jason!

First up, Jeff tells us all about yesterday's Nintendo event, where he got a chance to preview a bunch of exciting new games, including the new Super Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, and Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box. He also got a chance to try out the new Wii Fit Plus. Last year, when Jeff went onto the balance board to demo the original Wii Fit, the machine actually gave up and unplugged itself, committing console suicide, so we're all anxious to see if Nintendo beefed up this new version.

Caroline also surprises us with a very positive review of the new "Transformers" movie. It turns out that the movie is geared toward...teenage boys. Which makes us question why Caroline was there in the first place--what a cougar! She also tells us even more horrifying news about the upcoming Facebook movie based on Ben Mezrich's upcoming book, "The Accidental Billionaires." Caro tells us that Shia Labeouf and Michael Cera are being eyeballed to play the role of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, but the rest of us think those are both terrible choices. Actually, maybe it should be Labeouf; his portrayal of Zuckerberg would at least be more believable than his relationship with hottie biscotti Megan Fox in "Transformers 2." There's NO WAY a woman of that caliber would even sneeze in Lebeouf's general direction!

While Shigeru Miyamoto, the legendary game designer behind Nintendo hits such as Mario and Zelda, did not make an appearance during Nintendo's big E3 press conference, we did get a chance to see him host a small, intimate behind-closed-doors session (no photos or video allowed) later in the day with a select group of journalists and developers.

Speaking through a translator, Miyamoto personally grabbed a controller to demonstrate the New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii, talked the crowd through a Wii Sports Resort demo, and showed video of Super Mario Galaxy 2 and the new Zelda game for the Nintendo DS. But the real attraction was in hearing one of gaming's great minds hold court on a variety of topics, usually while his corporate minders cringed in horror (Miyamoto is as notoriously loose-lipped as Nintendo is secretive).

One new project Miyamoto said he was interested in pursuing was a software package for the Nintendo DS, aiming to make it useful as a carry-around digital device for everyday life. The examples he gave included being out shopping and being able to use the DSi's Wi-Fi connection to call up a map of the shopping mall you're in, or a classroom where teachers and students use DSi systems like a tiny tablet PC. "A program like that is something I've been interested in for a while," Miyamoto said.

Having worked on Mario games for about 20 years, Miyamoto says there's one thing he's been trying to do all that time--recreate the classic single-play Mario Bros. experience within a multiplayer environment.… Read more

LOS ANGELES--Microsoft on Monday set the tone for a newly revitalized E3 with the announcement of its Project Natal, a hands-free motion-sensitive controller for the Xbox. Now, on the heels of some less-than-stellar sales numbers, Nintendo has a chance to steal back the attention of the world's video game press, many of whom are on hand this week for the industry's most famous trade show. But can Nintendo do it?

This is our live blog of Nintendo's E3 press briefing, which kicked off shortly after 9 a.m. PDT at Club Nokia in Los Angeles. Sister site … Read more

Wednesday's Nintendo press conference at this year's GDC 2009 shed some light on various details about the company's ambitions. We now know about the Wii storage solution and the pricing structure and details surrounding DSiWare. While we would have liked to see a new Wii title announced, instead we were treated to a taste of a brand-new Zelda title for the Nintendo DS.

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks will be the latest adventure in the Zelda franchise exclusively for the Nintendo DS. There's not much information on the title, but it seems this adventure will … Read more