If the evidence on your friends’ list isn’t enough, Square Enix has announced that everyone is playing Final Fantasy XIII. Well maybe not everyone, but definitely more than ever before. Final Fantasy XIII sold more in one week than any other game in franchise history. In just five days, Final Fantasy XIII sold more than one million units.

Before fanboys get up in arms about which system sold the most, the figure above counts both systems. I know I’ll be playing my copy this weekend!

Anja shows off her Triangle Pose.

Sure, a metric ton of Wii exercise games include a yoga component, but how many are dedicated yoga games? That’s right. Just this one.

“Yoga” for Wii, from Austrian publisher JoWooD, features top model Anja Rubik as your at-home yoga instructor.

The game features real-world settings, the ability to create your own flows, and Wii Balance Board support (it’s not necessary to practice, of course).

The game is suited for everyone, beginners and experts alike, and should be available soon.

Many of the readers at GamingAngels know that when it comes to con season, the one con that means the most to me is San Diego Comic Con. I have been to SDCC for the past 10 years. This year is going to be lucky number 11. Unfortunately, or fortunately, SDCC has grown very quickly and to the point that it can barely hold everyone who wants to go. With both hotels and passes selling out months before the convention.

The good things about SDCC growing is that it means that more people will want to market or make announcements at SDCC, because of the enormous press coverage and access to the “geek market”. I also love that it means more people are coming for various reasons, but will likely be exposed to something that they may have never seen before. It’s great if SDCC can create more fans of comics.

Unfortunately SDCC can barely hold the amount of people that actually want to attend. Passes are all but sold out. Hotels went on sale today and most people on my twitter were placed in hotels not even in the hotel list because of sell out issues.

Here is what I don’t understand. For the last five years, Travel Planners has increasingly messed up Comic Con hotel registration. They have not been able to come up with a system that can handle the load and in past years, the website has crashed or people’s reservations were lost. So this year they felt they had to re-invent the wheel. What do they do? To start, you have to pick 12 hotels that you may want to stay at. Twelve. Are you serious? I want to stay near the con and on a shuttle route. There were barely 12 hotels that I would consider. But I did it anyway. I started calling on my way to work and actually got through right before 9am on the phone. I slid into my desk at work and gave the nice lady my 12 picks. According to their article, people that got in first would get preference for reservations. Also according to their “plan” we would hear back within 3-5 hours of what hotel we can choose to stay at. And you have to pay for the first night right away.

Well Travel Planners did not disappoint with the level of EPIC FAIL in handling reservations this year. Many of us got emails after 8-9 hours AND did not get a hotel that was even in their top 12. Most hotels that people got (like me) aren’t even on the SDCC approved hotel list.

I know something was wrong with their system because someone that reserved for hotels after I posted on Twitter about the reservations got their reservation before me and got close to the con.

I’m sad to see my favorite con have such a high barrier to attending. I love going to San Diego every year, but it is clear that the organizers have to do two things. First, they need to move the venue to a place that can meet demand. Second, they need to dump Travel Planners. They should have dumped them years ago. I can’t understand why SDCC keeps giving them chances.

I had the worst day today and a friend ended up turning my SDCC frustration down by coming to save the day. It’s going to cost us more money, but it does make me wonder if more hotels gave Travel Planners less rooms so they can book rooms at a higher premium. Hey, they know we’ll pay it.

In the end, I’m still going to my favorite con in the world, but I do want to meet with the organizers of SDCC this year and really find out the low-down and what is going on. Seeing people so upset on twitter, just makes me sad. SDCC is getting a bad reputation, which can help other small cons grow (as people defect to them), but SDCC is special. It just needs to get back to it’s roots again.

Ever broken the connector on your Ethernet cable? Can’t find the right length patch cable or just wondering how to make your own? Look no further I have your answers.

I haven’t had too much time to test out any new games or even old ones lately, so I thought, why not teach you how to make a patch cable?

In this video you’ll learn the basics of networking 101, how to make a patch cable – also known as a straight through cable. These cables are used for practically all home network cabling: from your cable modem to your router, your router to the PC, PS3, Xbox and Wii. In some cases with one extra piece of equipment hosting LAN parties too.

I have always preferred making my own because we run our own Ethernet cables through the house and I really hate running cables on the floor or nailed up against the wall. It looks too messy. Plus it’s hard finding the right length cable at times.

Materials needed:
1. Cat 5, Cat5e, or Cat6 UTP cable (whatever length you need + extra for mistakes and to make sure it’s long enough)
2. RJ-45 Connectors (at least 2 but pick up several more for any mistakes)
3. Wire cutters or scissors (anything to cut away the insulation)
4. RJ-45 Crimper

I am following the TIA/EIA 568B standard color coding, you can find a diagram here:
http://www.archonmagnus.com/computing/elec/diagrams/ethernetCableDiagram.jpg

Starting left to right
White Orange / Orange / White Green / Blue / White Blue / Green/ White Brown / Brown

If you have any questions or if anything was unclear just drop me a comment.

We (and to any men that are reading this, I use the words “we” and “us” to indicate women here, but you can keep reading) know that there are a lot of things that some unenlightened men just don’t seem to get about women and gaming. For instance, more women play games online than men (though that includes games like Farmville), and we buy more console games in a given year than men do.

But has anyone done a really recent study about women’s gaming habits? Not really. Well, not until Lifetime decided to (for those of you who don’t know, Lifetime is a “women’s” television network in the U.S.) do their own study titled, “She’s Got Game.” They surveyed 1,000 women on their gaming habits, and talked to a pool of men and gaming CEOs (this latter group…perhaps not the best people to ask right now?).

What did they find? As far as women as a whole, they found that 76% of us do game in some way. We might not all be “hardcore,” but most of us play something. That by itself challenges quite a few stereotypes. After that, rather than only look at women as a whole, they opted to split us up into five groups that fall into different places on two axes based on motivation for gaming: Investment, and desire for social interaction. For instance, an “immersive” female gamer would be on the low side of social interaction, but on the high side of investment. A small graph follows that both explains it and lists the groups.

The rest of their findings indicated things that aren’t horribly surprising: Women like to play alone, are fairly competitive, and play more frequently than men (which makes sense, since if you’re playing a more casual game, it’s really easy to jump in and out).

Lifetime has a whole slide show to illustrate all of their points. I’ve taken the slides and put them into a Flash slideshow below. Click “Play” to watch, and if you need more time for each slide, just pause it until you’re done, and then move on to the next slide.

How do you feel about these results? Do you see yourself fitting into only one category, or do you fit more than one? Me, I’m just an Immersive, but I think that I can also be a bit of a Minder if I’m busy and don’t have time to get fully into a game.

Lifetime will be sharing the results of this survey with marketers and advertisers as well as using them for their own social games.

This week, I was one of a lucky few to see an advance screening of Dreamworks’ How to Train Your Dragon, which comes to theaters March 26th.

**Warning this review contains spoilers**

It features vikings and dragons in an epic struggle. There are animated sheep with expressive eyes, and dragons ranging from small and stupid to large and intensely intelligent. The movie is presented in IMAX 3D, and if you have the opportunity to see it in this presentation, I strongly suggest it. 3D effects permeate the entire movie, from bits of ash floating down all around you to the bow of the viking ship emerging from a foggy screen to sail directly at you. Well worth the possible annoyance of the 3D glasses, which easily fit over my normal glasses, and gave me a wonderful show. The theater was packed full of families, as well as the occasional clump of college students. Despite the low average age in the theater, the movie was engaging enough to keep even the most fickle young audience member engaged all the way through.

The story revolves around a viking village, wherein massively strong vikings kill dragons on an almost nightly basis, as their village is raided, and their sheep carried off to provide dinner for hungry dragons. Our hero, Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel), is a gangly young boy who would much rather be building catapults and other fantastical works of mechanical engineering than be swinging an axe — which he can’t lift anyway. But he’ll do almost anything to get the attention of the girl of his dreams, Astrid (America Ferrera), the toughest of his peers, and also the most beautiful.

Hiccup meets an injured dragon, one of the most rare and dangerous, the Nightfury. Injured as it is, the dragon is unable to leave the valley that it has fallen into. When he fails to find the strength to kill the dragon, Hiccup befriends it, and they learn about each other. Meanwhile, Hiccup starts training with the other viking kids his age to learn how to kill dragons. He spends his days pretending to be a normal viking, and his afternoons and evenings learning to fly with a dragon, and learning about what dragons like. Days become disabling dragons without killing them, using the tricks he’s learned with his dragon friend, rather than by killing them, or hurting them in any way. Astrid, determined to be a better viking than puny Hiccup, follows him to his afternoon dragon ride. Shocked and appalled, she runs to tell the rest of the village, but is kidnapped by Hiccup and his friend, to show her what it’s like to fly. On that jaunt, the Nightfury, nicknamed Toothless, shows Hiccup and Astrid the dragons’ nest. Astrid plants herself firmly on Hiccup’s side, understanding what fantastic beasts the dragons are, and knowing that if anyone ever knew about Hiccup and Toothless, there would be no forgiveness. In fact, the vikings are scandalized when this comes to light, and Stoick, Hiccup’s father (voiced by Gerard Butler) disowns him, restrains his pet dragon, and forces it to help them find the dragons’ nest, leaving Hiccup in the village to watch them sail away, his dragon friend with them.

The movie concludes with a massive battle between vikings and dragons, with Hiccup and his peers playing a major role. When Hiccup and his brigade of viking teenagers arrive, the entire battle turns in favor of the vikings. Hiccup regains the pride of his father and encouragement of the entire viking community, which gives him the strength he needs to bring the battle to its fiery conclusion.

The production of this movie was well above what I expected. The animation was clear and neat, giving the audience the ability to understand the emotions of the characters by their facial expressions and body language alone, which was made even greater by the 3D experience. The casting for the voice actors was impeccably done, with voices like Gerard Butler as a war leader, and Jay Baruchel who made a young, nerdy viking boy come to life. The dragons were animated so cleanly and expressively that the group I went with left the theater in unanimous agreement: We want dragons too!!

How to Train Your Dragon is a wonderful tale that will pull you in, spin you around, and leave you in a place you never thought you’d be. It is the tale of a son, looking for approval from his father, in all of the wrong ways. It is a tale of compromise, where everything is not as it seems. It is a tale of teamwork and friendship, from the least likely sources. This movie has something for the entire family. The humor is accessible to everyone, with intricacies that will intrigue the adult mind, without confusing a child. Overall, How to Train Your Dragon is a strong offering from Dreamworks, I’ll be taking my friends and family out to see it again when it officially releases, and I encourage all of you to see it as well.

VIZ Media is proud to present VizAnime.com. A website recently launched that will premiere with over 400 episodes of VIZ’s most popular shows, including Bleach, Naruto Shippuden, Death Note, Inuyasha and Prince of Tennis.

The website will be completely free to use and have a customizable interface for users as well.

“A variety of interactive social networking tools and features also help foster an official online home and community for VIZ Media anime fans allowing them to connect on and discuss favorite shows, and offer ratings and opinions of various episodes.

Users can “follow” as many series as they like and choose to be notified each time a new episode is released, as well as keep track of the last episode they’ve watched. This makes it easy to stay current on series like INUYASHA or NARUTO, which feature more than 100 episodes.”

Check out VIZMedia.com and VIZAnime.com for more details.

Command & Conquer 4 Tiberian Twilight just came out this week for the PC, but also released is the first two parts of the four part motion comic series. The series is titled, The Incursion War.

Here is a summary of the motion comic series:
“When the volatile new NOD leader, a charismatic madman named Gideon, takes control of the orbital carrier METHUSELAH and threatens to crash it into Chicago, only Christian Pierce and his crew of GDI elite stand a chance of bringing him down.”

Watch the first two episodes here and we’ll be posting as future ones release. Enjoy!

The first Motion Comic:

Newest Motion Comic:

So, when I say that there will be a Wipeout game coming to Wii and DS, what do you think? If you’re like me, you remember the Psygnosis racing game from 1995. If you thought that (and really, why wouldn’t you, if you were born before 1989)…well, you’re wrong. Turns out I mean this:

Yeah, that’s a man falling on his rear end on the ABC television show Wipeout. (There’s an international version as well, and the whole lot resemble Japanese game shows enough that Tokyo Broadcasting filed a lawsuit! The more you know.) If you haven’t seen this, it’s really just a bunch of people making fools of themselves for money. Which is, to some extent, the plot of roughly 50% of American television at this point.

The video game version will allow for up to four competitors to participate as they all battle to become Wipeout champion. (Unfortunately, no prizes for that unless you set them yourself.) You even get to take advantage of such strategies as throwing things at your opponents. That’s one’s genius.

The titles will include the much-lauded commentary from hosts John Anderson, John Henson, and Jill Wagner.

Yeah, the month’s only about two-thirds over, but EA’s already got it all figured out: Battlefield: Bad Company 2’s already set the sales record in North America and Europe for March with 2.3 units shipped to retailers. (In fact, so many people are playing that it’s a little difficult to keep the servers up, isn’t it?) Metacritic’s been particularly kind to the game, as well, with an overall score of 90.

Looks like you’ll have some friends to spam with grenades for a while…or not, if you pay attention to this PSA, modeled after a similar, and more offensive, Modern Warfare 2 video.

Best question yet: Can we play as C.C.?

I do wonder, however, if they rushed to get this news out to somewhat overshadow Final Fantasy XIII, which is also pulling in some big numbers. If they get it wrong…well, that’s what happens when you decide that March ends on the 18th instead of the 31st.