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Last week, THQ had its annual Wrestlemania junket wherein 50 or so game writers were invited out to Detroit, shown the latest iteration of WWE Smackdown vs. Raw, and then taken to Wrestlemania 23.

Now, although I have attended events like these a bunch of times, they still endlessly fascinate me. Not only does THQ have to manage the schedules for 50 people, it also has to plan activities solely designed to keep the troops entertained. This year's trip saw people arriving on Wednesday and leaving on Monday, which means that everyone had lots of free time.

So. This year, THQ took the game nerds to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. The trip had absolutely nothing to do with anything, but it did have the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile, which game writers Tony "Matlock" Barrett and Chris Hoffman from the wonderful periodical Nintendo Power were kind enough to pose in front of.

Also, talk about educational, the Henry Ford Museum also had this:

(Make the jump to see this great piece of educational literature...)

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Any clever, highly motivated hobbyist can build from scratch an overclocked, water-cooled, insanely powerful PC in a meticulously detailed custom case. But it takes someone with a really fat wallet to go out and simply buy a souped-up machine like the Acer Ferrarri 1000. And because you're not going to schlep that PC housed in a real gingerbread castle to Starbucks to surf the web (okay, well maybe...), you could show off more comfortably with Acer's svelte, carbon fiber 3.5 pound portable with AMD Turion 64 X2 (trust us, that's badass) under the hood. Really, it's a better way to show the world what a supreme gaming tool you are. Check the ridiculous specs. Tanning bed and midlife crisis sold separately.

There's nothing less interesting in this world than watching other people play video games. Unless, of course, it's watching professional wrestlers playing video games.

Yet, oddly, the wrestling fans love it. Last week, THQ and the WWE held their annual Superstar Challenge, a contest to see which of the WWE wrestlers is the least inept at playing WWE Smackdown vs. Raw.

Wrestling fans packed the Gem theater in Detroit to watch the tournament and receive free stuff. Wrestlers such as Batista, Mr. Kennedy, Carlito, Jeff Hardy, and C.M. Punk participated in the tournament, and this guy won.

For the record, his name is Elijah Burke, and he wrestles for ECW. Go figure.

Head past the jump for exciting pictures of wrestlers playing video games.
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Dave Batista is kind of a low talker. The WWE wrestler is sitting down, talking to a bunch of game journalists as part of THQ's Wrestlemania celebration. More than 50 of us have come to Detroit to see WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008 (for DS, PSP, PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii).

Batista, a very nice man, is wholly disinterested in video games. This seems odd because this portion of the event will be followed by a game exhibition where the wrestlers get to compete in Smackdown vs. Raw for the Xbox 360 and see who's the best. Batista is scheduled to participate, will lose his "match" in roughly 12 seconds.

Right now, we're asking him hard-hitting questions: What Nintendo character do you most resemble, how do you feel about video games, etc. And now, I'm asking him what's the weirdest thing that's ever happened to him in the wrestling ring, or maybe outside of it. I'm doing this because clearly, Dave Batista has already cashed his check and is out the door.

He stops for just a second. "I don't know the weirdest thing," he says. "But I do know [wrestler] The Big Show once farted on me when I was trying to pin him."

We are all dumbfounded. And soon, Batista is out the door. I am obligated to report that I felt vaguely uneasy the rest of the day.

Electronic Arts and developer Harmonix (the developer recently purchased by MTV) are making preparations to rock.

Rock Band lets players take the role of a singer, guitarist (bass or regular), and drummer in an up-and-coming rock band. The kick here is that players will get to use guitar, drum, and microphone controllers to rock out either on one console or via Xbox Live 360 or the PlayStation network.

According to the press release heralding Rock Band, "The leading music publishers - EMI Music Publishing and Warner/Chappell Music - are allowing unrivaled access to their catalogs of incredible songs for use in Rock Band. The record labels - EMI Music, Hollywood Records, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group's Universal Music Enterprises and Warner Music Group's Rhino Entertainment - have agreed to supply master recordings by their artists for use in the game."

Oh, and the guy who's already played an early version reports that it kicks much ass.

Our combat-addicted gamer explains why he isn't into combat-driven games.

If I weren't on the road Sunday night, I would have ordered WrestleMania. If I weren't busy Thursday night, I would have gone to my karate dojo, which I've been going to since I was 7. Next time there's a big boxing match, I may buy it on pay-per-view. After all, I've been into professional pugilism since I worked at a boxing magazine in college.

People assume I like fighting. And they assume I like all sorts of fighting games. But that's not quite true.

The last wrestling game I played in earnest was a 1990s Nintendo 64 title featuring wrestlers from the then-WWF. I don't even remember the last martial arts game I obsessed over. It wasn't "Ninja Gaiden" on the Xbox. Maybe "Street Fighter II"? As for boxing, I was a big fan of "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!" and dutifully bought — but failed to enjoy — the game's sequel. I've boxed a few fights in each of EA's well-made "Fight Night" games but have never been hooked.

A friend recently pointed out that this is odd. Is it? If I'm so into combat outside of video games, how can I be so disinterested in "Mortal Kombat" games? I'm not sure if it's that strange. I have a game-reporter friend who used to do carpentry. As best I know, "SimCity" is not his favorite game. I interviewed Tiger Woods for about 10 minutes once and asked him what he was playing. He didn't volunteer "Tiger Woods PGA Tour." He volunteered "Resident Evil 4." I hear American soldiers do like their "Halo" and football fans sure do dig "Madden," but some people don't play the things they know.

One of my earliest memories from karate school, oddly enough, involves chainsaws. I was young and overheard a parent complaining about the unwatchability of the "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" movie. His problem wasn't that it was scary. His problem was that it insulted his chainsawing intelligence. He knew chainsaws from his day job — he was a lumberjack, I hope — and he knew that chainsaws couldn't take the beating they did in the movie and keep on working. Some people just know too much about a particular thing and can't appreciate the entertainment.

I thought that might be the problem I have with game-based fighting after I played an hour of "Fight Night Round 3" on the PS3 a couple of weekends ago. When I should have been appreciating the detailed graphics of Marvin Hagler's "Fight Night" entrance, I was distracted by the fact that the ring announcer introduced Hagler before the fighter had fully stepped into the ring. That's not how it happens in the real fights. I played a bout as James Toney, the terrific bulging boxer of the late '90s and he of a recent heavyweight comeback. I tried fighting the way he does, leaning on the ropes and rolling his shoulders to subtly misguide punches. The game permitted this technique better than I expected, to an extent that should have impressed me. But I've got Toney's real moves burned on my retinas, and these game versions weren't quite them.

Another possible explanation is saturation. My karate class meets twice a week. Perhaps that's enough fighting for me. Is it also that I know the real thing and won't stand for the virtual? That I'd rather try to flip someone in real life than square up for a "Tekken" tournament in virtual life? That could be. But I am not a pro wrestler — who would I be? The Reporter? Finishing move: the Deadline or the Follow-Up Question — and yet, I don't have a hankering for pro-wrestling games

I have one other theory. It has to do with why I've not quit karate since I was 7, why my heart beats fast just before a boxing match featuring a favorite fighter and why I'm most into wrestling when there's a wild character appearing on TV who can reliably give an entertaining speech: I need to be able to care about a fight. In real life, a fight can go badly in harmful ways, and in a fake wrestling match, a good performer can create the illusion of pain and disappointment. A matchup in boxing or wrestling or karate is supposed to mean something. A match in the video game is, at worst, nothing so dire the press of a reset button can't solve. Virtual Marvin Hagler will never have to hang it up because of old age; virtual James Toney will never have to work hard to recover from a humiliating defeat. A pile-driver on the head won't even muss the hair of a virtual wrestler. In "Street Fighter" and all its sequels, KOs don't mean anything to me, because everything is essentially always OK.

The solution for me to make these fights matter might be to take the games into a competitive arena. Maybe I should sign up for eSports, so it's me taking some of the virtual beating by feeling defeat in a "Dead or Alive 4" tournament.

Or maybe I should just steer clear of the games that deal with the things I know. I'll stick to more foreign video-game pursuits — enforcing the law, challenging Greek gods and eating rows of yellow dots. The other stuff hits too close to home.