Looks like it’s Fun And Games Day here at BKO today.

Let’s get the important stuff out of the way first: how long would YOU last chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor? My score is 54 seconds, but I think I would have scored better if I had learned a few choke holds in my younger days.

Here’s a must-have toy: an RC race car that has a wireless camera built into the windshield so that you can experience the first-hand point-of-view of the car via a par of VR goggles. Here’s the demo video to show you what the experience is like:

Even though DVD sales have levelled off, it doesn’t look like the format is in any danger of dying out too soon. Nevertheless, this seemed like a clever niche product that should attract some people: full-length movies on a USB flash drive. The original “Ghostbusters” movie will be the first traditional Hollywood film released on USB flash media, according to this tech news website. Granted, “Ghostbusters” isn’t exactly a hot new release, but it was definitely a huge film in its day and has a lot of residual popularity. There are probably a gazillion similar older titles that could find some new sales by being marketed on USB sticks. The viewer can copy the film to their computer’s hard drive, but there’s DRM built into this (of course) that requires you to have the stick plugged in when you want to watch it. I can see this being very popular with business travelers who like to watch movies on their laptops while flying. And there’s also enough room left on the stick to load up some music, photos or other files, so it’s a bit more versatile than a pre-recorded DVD. The only thing that doesn’t work is the price point: £29.99 in the UK, which is well over $60. It needs to price out around $10, because these days you can buy a blank USB flash drive for about ten bucks and load your own movies and such, and it’s easy to find older movies in DVD bargain bins for $9.99.

Everybody seems to agree that the thing that separates the Wii video game console from the rest of the consoles on the market is the motion-sensitive game controller that makes you feel like you’re part of the game. We have been known to work up a bit of a sweat around here getting a little too intense swinging the remote when playing Wii baseball, and I swear I strained my wrist playing Wii bowling. But the haptic controller is sheer genius — the accelerometer in the iPhone is also turning into a platform for making fun games for that device as well. So why not extend the idea and make motion-controlled TV remotes? Instead of pressing the channel button, you just flick your wrist to flip through the 500 channels on your cable system, raise or lower volume, and so on. Sadly, this isn’t a real product yet, just a concept project from a company that has a whole bunch of cool ideas for digital media interaction.

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I don’t know if you can quite make this out, but look at the middle of the picture. (Might be easier to make out on the bigger version) Those two things that look like feet are, in fact, the feet of a WWII pilot who parachuted out of his aircraft over the remote jungles of Papua New Guinea only to get caught in the trees of the jungle canopy and die there. His remains have been covered by moss, which has helped to preserve them in nearly original condition for over 60 years. The body was only recently discovered by accident by a group of locals hiking the rugged terrain on a photo expedition.

The identity and nationality of the pilot are as yet unkown — British, American and Australian air forces all patrolled the area — but the Australian Defence Department expects to send a recovery team to the area soon.

Spore was officially launched yesterday, a couple of weeks ahead of the announced release date. That’s most likely because it had alread found its way onto every major BitTorrent site on the Internet last week, and Electronic Arts wanted to be sure they could sell one or two copies before the entire world had downloaded it for free. Even moreso once the word-of-mouth started making the rounds. Quite a few people are unimpressed, saying that the game is too easy and becomes reptitive quickly. That’ll drive off the hardcore gamers fast, and those are the people who usually buy the game the minute it hits the shelves. Here’s Wired’s review as an example of the typical complaints I have read so far today.

So they’ve made a gamble: let the hardcore people download it for free and get the negative w-o-m out of the way as quickly as possible so that the “casual gamer” market will still buy it a month or two months or six months down the road. Ever since the Nintendo Wii proved that you didn’t have to kiss gamer ass to sell gazillions of units, there’s been a lot of interest in ways to capture the imaginations of the people who don’t buy the latest-and-greatest hardware and games. Personally, I don’t know if Spore is the right game to be trying this tactic. The SimCity series of games is the ancestry of Spore, and SimCity was not a game one picked up casually. Will Wright’s team got lucky with The Sims as a simpler way to re-imagine some of the concepts behind SimCity, and Spore incorporates many of the ease-of-use UI elements they developed, but still involves a lot more commitment than making your Sim go pee every three hours.

A lot of the let-down comes from the sheer unsupportable hype that has been swirling around for years. From the now-famous videos of Will Wright demoing the game at an E3 convention almost four years ago, it seemed like he had really come up with the ultimate game, and nobody did anything to disspell that impression, particularly as the release date slipped further and further away. My guess is that the demos we saw in 2004 were of a game that was nearly ready to ship with much more complex gameplay, but changes in the world of video games compelled EA to push Maxis to make changes again and again to try to live up to the rise of social networks, lessons learned about the pitfalls of MMORPGs, and the new “casual gamer” model. So the game was probably dumbed down a couple of degrees, and the interactivity model changed up a bit, all without disrupting the hype surrounding the few details that would occasionally slip out.

Having pre-ordered my copy ages ago from Amazon, I am content to wait until I get mine in the mail about a week from now. I’ve been waiting this long, what’s another week? It’ll give me the chance to read everyone else’s reviews, gripes, and suggestions, and if there are any presently-unknown bugs, there’ll be the chance for someone to find and report them. A lot of people are particularly unhappy about the digital rights management scheme built into the game — the infamous SecuROM software. They’re talking about it over at Slashdot, which has a link to a story about how some gamers are giving the game bad ratings at Amazon to try to drive down sales because of their displeasure with the DRM. The inclusion of SecuROM is not new news, so I don’t know what people are in a dizzy about it now, and the necessary cracks are available right along with the game itself at the usual places. I’ll be downloading the crack at the first sign of trouble from SecuROM, I can tell you that much.

Based on the complexity and depth of the SimCity series, I was sure that once Spore came out I’d be holed up in my den all winter with it, but it’s looking like it will not be quite the timesink I originally expected. Even the whispered rumors of Civilization V say it’s more than a year away, and I am really in need of a replacement for CivIV for a while. Looks like Spore won’t keep me going that long, but I hope I get at least a few weekends’ entertainment out of it.

From our “How Quickly They Grow Up Department”: Tween pop idol Miley Cyrus is reported to be in negotiations for a million-dollar deal to be the spokesperson for LifeStyle Condoms That’s going to put a whole new spin on her signature tune “The Best Of Both Worlds”, dontchathink? In related news, yesterday I got to explain what condoms are to my 7-yera-old daughter over lunch. Her reaction? “That’s gross!” I predict millions of similarly awkward conversations between parents and their pre-pubescent female children, but a huge uptick for sales of “Hannah Montana” bubblegum-flavored personal lubricant in Disney stores across the country. Meanwhile, Miley’s dad, Billy Ray Cyrus, is still a has-been. That is all.

From our “It’s Bleedin’ Seabird Flavor” Department: Celebrity chef and noted gastrosexual Gordon Ramsay got a little more than he bargained for recently when he fell ass over tea kettle off aa cliff in Iceland trying to catch a live puffin to cook and eat on his television show. The puffin bit him on the nose, causing him to lose balance and plummet onto the rocks below. Ramsay was quoted as saying “%6*@#$! *_@%@$^!!! you sodding puffin!” Nice mouth, Gordon. Do you talk to your mother that way?

From our “Too Hot To Trot” Department: It’s official: former Vice President Dan Quayle will NOT be one of the celebrities on the upcoming season of “Dancing With The Stars”. Why not? Sources say the only dance he knows how to do is the Mashed Potatoe. I t looks like pop star Lance Bass WILL be on DWTS, but producers have put the kibosh on having the now-out-of-the-closet star dance with one of the male dancers. That’s one less “showmance” to have to think about come September. The celebs will be announced on August 25.