Here we see Danny Johnson, the 14-year-old Guitar Hero phenom scoring 986,000 points playing Dragon Force’s ‘Through the Fire and Flames” on Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock. I don’t know about you, but Fire and Flames on expert makes me crap my pants in 10 seconds or less.

Anyway, this video was recorded at home, but young Danny performed the feat publicly at a Best Buy last week, scoring 973,954 points, to take the record away from some douchey 17-year-old (we kid, we know nothing about Chris Chike except that his 899,703 points can touch Danny).

Anyway, we racked our brains to think of world records that come with a smaller chance of getting laid, but could only come up with ‘longest fingernails’ and ‘fattest person’, so Danny, you’re in good company.

Readers, let us know if you think of any other records that don’t attract the ladies.

Microsoft announced that in honor of Gears of War 2 shipping this Friday, they’re turning the midnight release date into a huge event with over 20,000 locations taking part, and a few locations getting a few celebrity guests.

The writers and artist team of the Gears comic will be out and about, as will staff from both Epic and Microsoft, however, Universal City, just outside of LA is clearly the winner in terms of star power and promotions.

Here’s a list of some of the bigger locations:

*sigh* I’d be there if only I had a car…and money…and Friday off…and a pony…

Phenomic developed and EA distributed game Battleforge has announced that it will make available a public beta.  This is a good idea, as not much is happening on that day.

Battleforge is equal parts real-time strategy and collectible card game set in a fantasy world.  If done well and marketed correctly, the game would be digital crack. 

Info on the game and the beta can be found here.

Appleinsider.com has a huge story about how the Beatles catalog will be used in a game from the creators of Rock Band and Guitar Hero to be published by MTV games.

If that’s not a big enough story, this deal has been struck BEFORE the Beatles completed a deal to bring their music to iTunes.

This game is going to make eleventy-billion dollars.  An entire new kind of math is going to have to be invented to compute and total the cash rolling in from this game.  People involved with this game are going to swim around in swimming pools of money Scrooge McDuck style.

Read the story here.

God were we reaching with that title.

Anyway, Midway officially confirmed today that interim president since March ‘08, Matthew Booty has officially been named president of the corporation.  Booty worked his was up from the trenches, starting at Midway as a programmer and engineer, and started climbing the ladder from there.  He brings experience, knowledge, and a sweet last name to the job.  It works on two levels; babes and treasure.  Which is awesome.

I know this seems sort of like a non-story unless you’re an investor, but I have to write something or I’ll do is think about Gears of War 2 and how it’s not out yet.

See that?  It’s called bias in the media.

Press release as follows.

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EA has announced that Lord of the Rings: Conquest will ship January 9th, 2009 internationally and then in the US on January 13th, 2009.

It’s created by Pandemic and in the same vein as their Star Wars: Battlefront titles where you take part in a larger battle, and can play for either side in what amounts to giant capture the flag games as you try to hold points and respawn centers.

The games have always been a decent experience, so hopefully the graphics will be sharp and the controlsfurther refined, etc.

But what I really want to know is, why are e getting it later than the rest of the world?  This is America damn it.  Everything comes out here first.  What the hell?  Did we lose a war?

Press Release. Jump.

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Apparently the N-Gage is still around.

I’m just as shocked as you are. 

Also, EA has decided to release games for the N-Gage.  Including some you may have actually heard of, I know, I know, it’s messed up.

Do I even need to post the press release?  Do any of you even have an N-Gage?

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You can get Earthworm Jim on the Wii’s virtual console.

I am unbelievably happy.  I’m one of those nerds that really dug 2-D games, stuff being handrawn, and all kinds of other stuff we threw under the bus for 3-D.

I’m going to stop ranting before I lay into Street Fighter 4, buy Jim for 800 Wii points.

Here at NLG we often get sent a lot of weird crap which sits around cluttering up our spacious beach front office.  Some of it’s neat, a lot of it is random, and most of it is very much useless.

Most of the time it either sits around, gets claimed by someone, or is dropped off the roof.  Rarely is it ever actually talked about.

Until now.

Our fearless editor-in-chief was just e-mailed a press packet regarding a thid-party peripherals developer called Thrustmaster.

Thrustmaster.

Thrustmaster.

Now, that in and of itself is sort of weird and awkward, but kind of funny, like an old white person raising the roof to ‘Who Let the Dogs Out?’  It’s unnecesarry, but the world is no worse off than it was before.

However, our press release is regarding that Thrustmaster is now creating products for the Wii.  The frattiest named company in the history of matter has joined forces with the wangiest named console and, frankly, we’ll be damned if we’re going to let an easy joke like that slip by us.

Or so I’m told.

See, working as a videogame “journalist” is not all cocktails with celebrities and bedding Eastern European supermodels.  Sometimes, you have to write about an entity that named itself ‘Thrustmaster.’

Okay, so what does the pre release actually say? 

“Thrustmaster, the innovative PC and console accessory brand from the Guillemot Corporation, announces the availability of this seasons hottest Wii™ fighting games accessories, the Glow Saber Duo Pack NW…”

So, Thrustmaster has created a sword for you Wii.

It’s like they don’t even care.  They’re not even trying.  Wave your Thrustmaster sword around while screwing around with your Wii.

Then, I check out the website.   It starts off with what sounds like a gigantic drill warming up, followed by guitar solos and techno music.  It should be noted that this is EXACTLY what I wanted to see when I pointed my browser to Thrustmaster.com

Granted, I’ve never used any of there accessories.  I’d never even heard of the company until I was told about the e-mail.  They could be the greatest accessories known to man even eclipsing the first-party peripherals.  But I’d never know it, because that would entail having something in my home that says Thrustmaster on it out where just anyone could see it.

Then would begin the awkward conversations, a Q&A cat and mouse game, if you will, as my soon-to-be-former friends tried to ascertain if I was in fact sticking it in my ass.

See what happens with no effort?  Thrustmaster didn’t try, so neither am I.

One of the better nerd blogs out there, www.io9.com, which you should all be reading, has a story about one of their readers sending in an e-mail talking about possible Scientology-esque/inspired story elements, and they also have EA’s response to the claim.

It’s sort of weird thing because it does line up with a few Scientology beliefs, but then again, Hubbard was not the greatest sci-fi writer of all time (just the richest), and how many different ways can you tell a story about aliens, space gods, and the people who love them?

Link’s here.