D3Publisher’s Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers is a stretch for the Wii. Instead of Mii’s and Marios it’s half-naked anime girls with bloody swords that get stuck inside their zombie victims if you don’t clean them off.

Yeah, you get to use two swords at once — Wiimote and nunchuck — to wipe out dozens of zombies at once.

The game is simple: you control two sexy sisters wearing bikinis and cowboy hats. It’s based on the movie “Onechanbara,” which came out in April in Japan.

What I liked about this game was that the developers aren’t taking themselves too seriously. They know this isn’t going to be the next 100 million unit-selling game. It’s a simple game with hot chicks, swords and zombies.

“This is the kind of game where you come home from the office and need to blow up some steam — kill some zombies,” said Alex Coward, localization manager for D3 and demoer of the game.

The demo “peep show” was pretty impressive. I’m glad to see a little more maturity on the Wii. If you’re looking for something different, check this out early next year when it drops in the US.

The deal is still pending league approval and Shockey’s physical.

It’s been rumored that Shockey has been unwanted by the team ever since their Super Bowl run when the team seemingly got much better without him. His receiving and blocking talents apparently are outweighed by his boorish behavior and me-first attitude.

Look for him to be very productive in Sean Payton’s offense. Drew Brees must be the happiest guy in Louisiana.

“We acquired a perennial Pro Bowl player and one of the NFL’s top pass rushers,” executive vice president of football operations Vinny Cerrato said. “He is a great leader who will fit in very well with our team. We feel that Jason is a great addition on the field as well as off the field.

“He is a playmaker who can do so many different things for us on defense.”

And, in true Redskins fashion, they plan on keeping Andre Carter at right defensive end and moving the guy that played 11 seasons there to the left side. It’s not easy to switch sides in football, as everything changes. So, keep an eye on this one as he may not be the guy they thought they were getting.

Jimi Hendrix, one of the most influential and iconic music makers of the 20th century will be featured in Guitar Hero: World Tour as both a playable character and with two of his songs: “”Purple Haze” (Live edition)” recorded in 1969 at the San Diego Sports Arena and ““The Wind Cries Mary.””

Additional songs will follow as downloadable content.

“”Guitar Hero games have become the virtual rock stage for the industry’s most beloved artists and Guitar Hero World Tour continues that tradition by honoring the great Jimi Hendrix and celebrating some of his greatest work,”” said Tim Riley, vice president of music affairs for Activision Blizzard. “”His presence in the game will serve to satisfy multiple generations of his fans and Guitar Hero devotees, as well as create new fans by reintroducing his genre-defining guitar style through the unique Guitar Hero experience.””

Being developed by Neversoft for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Vicarious Visions for Wii and BUdcat for PlayStation 2, Guitar Hero: World Tour is slated for a launch later this year.

Gasoline-electric hybrids now, like Toyota’s popular Prius, don’t need to plug in-you just fill their tanks with gasoline and the battery keeps charged by the internal combustion engine and by energy generated from the wheels when braking (a feature known as “regenerative braking”). The battery then powers the electric motor when it is called into service during idling, backing-up, crawling in gridlock, maintaining speed while cruising, and for extra uphill power when needed. As such, the electric motor is essentially a back-up engine while the hybrid relies mainly on the gasoline engine.

Plug-in hybrids take the concept further by plugging into a regular electric outlet to enable the vehicle to operate solely on its electric motor for ranges of 40-50 miles or more on a single charge. This has profound implications for commuters who need only drive short distances to and from work every day and who may be able to do so solely on electric power. The gasoline engine then becomes the supplemental one for when the car needs to travel farther than the electric engine can take it.

According to researchers at the University of California Davis, the electricity cost for powering a plug-in hybrid is only about one-quarter of the cost of powering a like-sized gasoline vehicle. Other benefits include far fewer fill-ups at gas stations and the convenience of recharging at home.

Toyota, currently the world’s largest producer of hybrid vehicles by far thanks to the success of its Prius, announced that it expects to have a commercially viable plug-in hybrid available to consumers as early as 2010 and is now testing prototype versions of plug-in hybrids at two California universities.

Felix Kramer of the California Cars Initiative (CCI), a non-profit dedicated to promoting plug-ins, called Toyota’s announcement “stunning and very welcome,” and says that these vehicles will be the cleanest practical cars on the road in a world where gas stations dot just about every intersection. The promise of such cars, says CCI on its website, is that drivers will have a “cleaner, cheaper, quieter car for local travel, and the gas tank is always there should you need to drive longer distances.”

U.S. automakers are also jumping onto the plug-in bandwagon. General Motors says that it will have mass-market plug-in hybrids-modifications of its Saturn Vue and Chevrolet Volt-on the road by 2010. Ford has also developed a small fleet of plug-ins, but is not yet ready to offer them to the public. Fisker, a U.S. start-up focusing on the creation of high performance, energy efficient vehicles, plans to sell an $80,000 plug-in hybrid sports car by late 2009. Chrysler’s Sprinter van was the first plug-in from a major U.S. manufacturer, but it is only presently available to a limited number of institutions as a fleet vehicle.

Plug-ins have also caught on elsewhere. Chinese carmaker BYD plans to sell a plug-in hybrid sedan in the U.S. within five years. And Volkswagen hopes to have a plug-in hybrid Golf ready to roll by 2010.

CONTACTS: California Cars Initiative, www.calcars.org; BYD, www.byd.com; General Motors, http://www.gm.com/experience/fuel_economy/news/2008/hybrids/plug_in_vue_011008.jsp; Fisker, http://jalopnik.com/344419/detroit-auto-show-fisker-karma-luxury-hybrid-only-80000.

Dear EarthTalk: I was intrigued to hear that there were a number of ways one could modify or construct a roof on a house or office facility that would provide great environmental benefit. Can you enlighten? – Bill Teague, Menlo Park, CA

Most buildings are designed to shed rain, and as such are built with hard, impenetrable roofing surfaces. As a result, rainwater bounces off and collects as runoff, picking up impurities-including infectious bacteria from animal waste as well as harmful pesticides and fertilizers-on the way to municipal storm sewers, which in turn eventually empty out into local bodies of water.

Minimizing this run-off means that more impurities will remain in local soils where they can be broken down more easily into their constituent elements than if they are concentrated downstream. In order to achieve this goal, landscape architects have developed so-called “green roofs,” which utilize living plant matter and soil on top of a building in order to absorb, collect and reuse rainwater while preventing run-off. Many buildings employing green roofs are able to find abundant uses for the water they collect, from watering exterior plantings at ground level to flushing toilets inside.

According to Steven Peck of the Toronto-based non-profit Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, green roofs can play an important role in maintaining ecological integrity within otherwise paved over areas. “The roofscapes of our cities are the last urban frontier-from 15 percent to 35 percent of the total land area-and the green roof industry can turn these wasted spaces into a force for cleaner air, cleaner water, energy savings, cooling, beauty and recreation,” he says.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) encourages the creation of green roofs for mitigating the urban “heat island effect,” whereby temperatures in crowded cities can soar some 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than in less developed areas nearby. Other benefits, says the EPA, include: providing amenity space for tenants (in effect replacing a yard or patio); reducing building heating and cooling costs due to the buffering effect of the plant matter and soil; filtering pollutants like carbon dioxide out of the air and heavy metals out of rainwater; and increasing bird habitat in otherwise built-up areas.

Beyond going all out to build a “living” green roof, certain inorganic materials can also make an existing roof greener. The non-profit Cool Roof Rating Council (CRRC), for instance, suggests roofing surfaces that reflect the sun’s heat so as to reduce the urban heat island effect while improving residential energy efficiency. According to the group, “a cool roof reflects and emits the sun’s heat back to the sky.” Builders can check out CRRC’s website for a database of information on the radiative properties of various roofing surfaces so as to make the smartest choice for clients and the environment.

Another quality that makes certain roofs greener than others is how long they last. Metal roofs are known to be relatively maintenance free and last longer than shingles in most situations. Slate roofs also have an excellent reputation for lasting long, although getting work done on them can be expensive when they do need repairs. The Slate Roofing Contractors Association reports that sea green slates can last anywhere from one to two centuries, depending on where the slate is quarried and how well it’s eventually installed.

CONTACTS: Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, www.greenroofs.org; CRRC, www.coolroofs.org.

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek/, or e-mail: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.

Filing against Comcast, the Free Press and Public Knowledge non-profit organizations prompted the FCC into litigious action. As the battle went on in the courts, it seemed to be going in favor of the consumers. Last Thursday, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin dealt another blow in keeping with that trend.

“The commission has adopted a set of principles that protects consumer’s access to the Internet,” Martin told The Associated Press late Thursday. “We found that Comcast’s actions in this instance violated our principles.”

His word was the tipping point that consumers and organizations supporting ‘net neutrality’ needed.

Comcast has said publicly that the FCC’s policy on broadband standards is not enforceable and that the commission has “never before provided any guidance on what it means by ‘reasonable network management.’” The FCC approved a policy statement in September 2005 that outlined a set of principles as a means to ensure that broadband networks are “widely deployed, open, affordable and accessible to all consumers.” Those standards have been set forth as:

• To encourage broadband deployment and preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet, consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice
• Consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement
• Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network
• Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers

Other Internet Service providers argue that this kind of unclear regulation and enforcement, naturally leads them to come up with network solutions, among them ‘network bandwidth throttling’, and ‘ceasing P2P network patterns’, to manage their billion dollar hardware network traffic as they choose. This activity isn’t central to America. Bell Canada Enterprises and Rogers Communications Inc. have also reacted in much the same way as Comcast has.

FCC chairman Martin (a Republican) had strong support from the two Democrats on the commission, who are proponents of the network neutrality concept. Their two votes were enough for a majority ruling on the five-member commission. Without being dealt a fine, but a stern warning instead, the commission asked that Comcast release any information that pertains to the practices of its current mode of ‘network management’, and to divulge to its consumers on how its implementation of any future network management practices will affect them. Any new network management practices will be in use by the end of the year.

“We want to make sure the Internet stays as it is,” said Ben Scott of Free Press, earlier in the year. “Should we give more control to the network owners, who can then decide which Web sites load quickly?” Scott asked. “Can they become the gatekeepers for Internet content?”

WESTWOOD, Calif. — It’s easy for a Bostonian to lose himself in Westwood Village. After all, it looks like a combination of Newbury Street and Tremont Street, complete with shopping, moviegoing and eating.

Tanino, on Westwood Boulevard, is a beautifully designed Italian restaurant and top-shelf bar. It’s perfect for dinner for two, dinner for the family or in this case, a quick escape while my co-worker goes shopping for a new outfit across the street.

I recommend a nice Italian drink like lemoncello or espresso with sambocca. I had a Scotch, but that’s because I was in a Scotch mood. And they have a very good selection of Scotch, Irish Whisley, Bourbon and much more.

Tanino doesn’t miss in the food department either. The Burrata caprese salad ($13.50), was an excellent mixture of fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, roasted red peppers, basil and olive oil — one of my top 10 favorite dishes, and they didn’t disappoint.

I’d also recommend the lombatina di vitello ($36), a 16-ounce veal chop with raosted potatoes and sauteed spinach.

There are also more than an dozen pasta dishes including four-cheese gnocchi ($17) and three kinds of risotto.

I was impressed with the old country feel of the restaurant, it’s knowledgeable and attentive staff and most of all its deep variety of fresh food.

I sat at the bar and made chit-chat with a new, veal-ordering friend and the bartender, both also from Boston. I came away from Tanino with a great experience that will bear repeating on future trips westward.

We witnessed a revitalized Atari, a ballsy Electronic Arts and the peak of the music game fad.

Here’s what we took away from the conference:

BEST GAME
Fallout 3
Bethesda Softworks
Xbox 360/PlayStation 3
September

Bethesda built a winner from scratch with an amazing looking Fallout 3. Blast played this game, Blast loved this game. You’ll won’t see a more visually and audibly appealing video game this year. This game is a massive project for any developer, but Bethesda, who saw huge success with “The Elder Scrolls” role playing game series, seems poised to release a game of the year candidate in the fall.

BEST ONLINE GAME
DC Universe Online
Sony Online Entertainment
PlayStation 3, PC
TBA

Comic book legend Jim Lee was the Executive Creative Director of the game and created the visual world DC Universe would be set in based on art from the entire history of DC comics. You get to team up with or fight against Superman and Batman. How cool is that?

BEST HANDHELD GAME
N+
Atari
Nintendo DS and Sony PSP
August 12

With 300 puzzling levels to explore, plus many hidden unlockable ones, N+, based on the hit Flash game, was the best handheld game at E3, and E3 agreed by giving it best in show in the DS and PSP categories. N+ led the charge for a revitalized Atari Inc.

GUARANTEED BEST SELLER/BEST PC GAME
Spore
Electronic Arts
PC
September 7

Within 18 days of the release of Spore Creature Creator, there were over 1.7 million “Spores” created. That’s more than the 1.589 million actual species known to exist on earth, Will Wright pointed out at the EA press conference Tuesday. And that says something about the anticipated impact “Spore” will have when it’s released in September.

BEST WII GAME
Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party
Ubisoft
November

First game you can play with your ass.

BEST MUSIC GAME
Rock Band 2
Harmonix/MTV Games
Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii
Fall

No real competition at E3. Guitar Hero: World Tour will be awesome too, but Activision wasn’t there this year.

GUTSIEST PROJECTS

Dead Space
Electronic Arts
Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC
October 21

Mirror’s Edge
Electronic Arts
Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC
Holiday season

Good work, EA. You managed to stretch your legs and come up with both a bloody horror flick and a FPS where you don’t have ever fire a gun. Both games will either be home runs or total flops (leaning toward an extra base hit) but they’re ballsy! Nice!

M.A.G. Massive Action Game, 256 player online multiplayer
Zipper Interactive/Sony
PlayStation 3
TBA

Another crap shoot. If Zipper does this game right, and we mean JUST RIGHT, M.A.G. could be one of the good ones.

MOST IMPROVED: Atari

BIGGEST LETDOWN: Nintendo

Winning E3’s Best in Show for DS and PSP, N+ led the charge to highly acclaimed gaming. Based on the award winning flash-game N, N+ is a uniquely addictive platformer experience.

As a ninja trying to obtain as much gold as possible during your average one and a half minute lifespan, N+ has 300 puzzling levels to explore, plus some hidden unlockable ones. Each level of N+ has a door to the next level, gold coins to obtain, and various robotic bombs and missiles to explode a player as often as possible. Luckily for N the ninja, he has remarkable regenerative capabilities that allow the player to restart the same level where they most recently had a tragic death.

In addition to the faithful translation of the original online game, the DS and PSP versions also have a wide array of multiplayer capabilities. With 100 cooperative levels and 50 competitive levels, N+ also had the ability to download new maps from the N server as well as design new maps with the integrated level editor. The ability to share levels over the PSP and DS wireless connectivity services is new to the N universe.

N+ is coming to handheld systems worldwide on August 12.

Atari’s big PC title came in the form of The Witcher: Enhanced Edition; an updated version of the role-playing game released in October 2007. In addition to updated features like more than 5000 rerecorded lines of dialogue and a new character differentiation system for non-playable characters, the enhanced edition also includes a multilingual game disc which allows any language combination of voice-over and subtitles, the official soundtrack CD and a short story by The Witcher novelist Andrzej Sapkowski.

The Witcher, based on the novels by Sapkowski, has won more than 90 awards and has sold more than 800,000 copies worldwide since its release in 2007. The player takes on the role of the renowned monster slayer Geralt of Rivia in a world where moral ambiguity reigns. A unique feature of the game is the way that each decision made may not directly affect the game until hours later. The Enhanced Edition of The Witcher is set to be released in September.

On a different note, RACE Pro is an ultra-realistic simulation racing game coming from Atari in November for the Xbox 360.

RACE Pro’s new ‘Hot Seat’ feature gives a different meaning to multiplayer racing. Each player drives in the ‘hot seat’ for a short period of time before they have to pass off the controller to the next player. This unique feature accelerates the pace of the game and makes multiplayer a more communal experience.

Atari went out of their way to produce as realistic a racing game as they could. RACE Pro features more than 15 real life tracks that span all continents across the globe. Players can win official championship titles using a wide variety of realistic car models. Participants earn their skills as a true racer would in real-life; through intense training, scoring key wins and receiving big sponsorship deals.

Hailed by many as being better than 2K’s 2008 tennis title Top Spin 3, Smash Court Tennis 3 was Atari’s big sports game release. Coming out in August to the Xbox 360, Smash Court Tennis 3 allows players to compete against or alongside some of the biggest names in the industry such as Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Justine Henin.

Smash Court Tennis 3 allows the player the ability to compete in the tennis world on more than a dozen courts and championships in five different modes; Arcade, Tutorial, Exhibition, Pro Tour, and mini-games.

Players can play with their local or online friends via Xbox Live. Smash Court Tennis 3 has already been released on the PSP.

Coming this fall is the newest installment of the Deer Hunter franchise and, as the Atari producers said, the most addictive. Deer Hunter Tournament is to be released for the PC and, for the first time, the Xbox 360 later this year.

Atari has made some radical changes since the series’ original release in 1997 by Infogrames. The animals in the game can see, smell, hear and even fight when they are targeted in a hunter’s sights, unlike previous games where they typically respond after a shot is fired. Some of the animals targeted even threaten and hunt the hunter down until a final showdown where it is the player being attacked, not the animal.

Deer Hunter Tournament has the first ever online hunting community through its tournament system that is designed to create a massive network of players who regularly compete and communicate with one another in the Deer Hunter universe.

In addition to the tournament community, the game now involves new dynamics such as bullet time, thermal scopes and rag doll physics, so that hunters can scout their hunting area before they start shooting in order to set up traps and hiding spots.

The latest expansion pack for the Neverwinter Nights 2 franchise will be coming in late 2008 to the PC under the title Storm of Zehir. This most recent expansion to the Neverwinter Nights 2 universe occurs concurrently with previous expansion pack Mask of the Betrayer.

Continuing the legacy of Dungeons and Dragons role-playing videogames, Storm of Zehir features a new map, improved party game play, a world economy that reacts to players’ adventures and choices and new classes, spells, creatures, and playable races.

One of the coolest games in Atari’s line-up was also the only unnamed game at the convention. Created by Atari producer David Geudelekian, the DS title is a platformer with a plot like no other. The story switches between its two main characters; Felicity and Felix. The male and female lead met at the beginning of the game and set up a date. The rest of the game is focused on the two of them trying to reach their date in time while maintaining their crush’s interest.

The point system is a type of ‘crush-o-meter’ which can either gain or lose interest in the characters’ significant other dependent upon their actions. Using cool skills and getting to the end goal fastest allows players to gain crush points, while dying or spending a really long time getting to the end-goal causes them to lose points.

Definitely the coolest aspect of the upcoming in-the-process-of-being-titled game, slated for a Valentine’s Day release, is its usage of DS functionality. A player can use their stylus to draw platforms for themselves across the top of the screen.

However, instead of making it so that a player can use the draw-yourself-a-platform skill to cheat their way through the entire game, a power bar depletes on the DS’s top screen the more the player draws platforms. If a player is unable to multitask and navigate the top screen while keeping an eye on their power bar, the drawn platform changes in color as the power bar depletes from green to yellow to red, which we at Blast found very, very cool. It is our recommendation of a title to keep an eye out for, once it gets named.

All in all, Atari came out with a very well-rounded line-up; dabbling in a little bit of every genre, but doing it well. It’s been a hard past few years for Atari, but they have come back strong and it only seems like they’re coming on stronger. They came to this year’s E3 to say ‘Hey, we’re not out of this business,’ and they said it well.

So what if they were the only one there? They rocked. And they had booth babes. In fact, photo credit for the pictures in this story goes directly to a red-wigged girl with piercing eyes.

But enough about my frustrations, back to games.

NYKO has several handy products available that they were demoing at the Media and Business Summit, including a guitar that works with both Guitar Hero and Rock Band in PlayStation 3.

So pay attention to the wireless Frontman. It also makes the transition from Guitar Hero to Rock Band much easier. The Frontman feels natural, responds smoothly, and looks great. It loved it, and I’m buying one. As you can see, I also look great playing it.

Another product you’ll probably buy if you have a PlayStation 3, the NYKO Media Hub+ is a combination USB hub/media card reader. It fits flush against the PS3 and will allow you to plug all your instruments into smaller PlayStation 3’s without as many USB ports.

NYKO also has cooling products available for PlayStation 3 and Wii that turn on when the system gets hot and turn off when the system cools down — they even stay on right after you shutdown the system to make sure everything cools off properly.

As NYKO publicist Quinn Wageman explains, “if you’re watching a DVD, you’re not going to need the fans, but if you’re playing a graphics-intense game, you will.”

Disclaimer: NYKO was the company that invited Blast to E3 this year. Blast appreciates and enjoys its long-standing professional friendship with NYKO, but reminds readers that it has no effect on our reviews or editorial policies. Every media outlet at E3 this year was invited by another company. Except maybe IGN.