This is going to be a video heavy post, so let’s get to it.

Those of you that keep up on these kinds of things already know that Darth Vader and Yoda have been revealed as playable characters in Soul Calibur 4. While I was first skeptical that it could be a hoax, I’m now fairly certain it’s legitimate.

To my surprise, however, a lot of the comments I’m seeing regarding the topic are negative. After Spawn, Link, and… that dude from Tekken that I didn’t really care about were in Soul Calibur 2, you’d think that people wouldn’t be quite so shocked at a little franchise crossover action. And Star Wars? Fuck yeah. Could be worse man. I mean I am by no means the Star Wars dork I was in high school anymore(reading EU novel and novel, anyone?), I still loves me some Star Wars more than your average bear. Hell, I’ll take some unlockable Star Wars characters in just about any game you want to throw them in.

Madden 08? Sure, you can take Tom Brady, I’ll QB with my man Boba Fett. Rock Band? Han Solo is my lead singer, jealous much? Eat your heart out Mr. T, in World of Warcraft I play a Night Elf Stormtrooper.

Also, this floated across my desk, fresh from CES. I don’t know when it will come out, but I’ll take three.

I’ll wait on some info from the final product to be sure. It looks pretty snazzy, though I’d have to do some rearranging of my desk to fit that beast. From all reports it’s got some very faint verticle lines (three of them) which seem to indicate that it’s essentially a few displays connected together. Which, you know, makes sense because of the curve. Will be interesting to see how it progresses (and what games will support a resolution like that). If anyone at Alienware wants to send one my way for “testing,” I’ll be happy to put it through its paces.

Someone also sent me this, again from CES. While I think it’s pretty mean, and cruel to the exhibitors there, and inappropriate, etc etc … all the feigned moral high ground in the world couldn’t stop me from laughing at it. I hope the people having “mysterious monitor trouble” can be relatively good natured about it in hindsight when they see this video.

Anyway, speaking of events in which technology is a primary feature, as is having fun, we’ll be starting tournament sign-ups for Digital Overload very shortly. In the next few days I’ll be posting all of the rules, map rotations, etc that you’ll need to prepare/practice, which will then be followed by online sign-ups for registered and paid attendees. Spaces for tournaments will be limited this year, to help make even brackets, and also better manage the length of tournaments, as well as the overall organization. So it will be first come, first served as far as signing up for these tourneys, though we will have a standby list once a tournament is filled, in case of no-shows or drop-outs at the event. So make sure you’re registered and paid if you want to participate in a tournament, so you can sign up early. Also now would be a good time to move along any team arrangements, so you can all sign up with the same team name. The forums are a good place to do that.

Also I don’t think I announced our last tournament to be revealed, which was our 1v1 PC selection, Unreal Tournament 3.