One of the most interesting, addictive features in Microsoft and Turn 10 Studios’ Forza Motorsport 2 is the ability to create custom detailing and paint jobs for your arsenal of racing machines. Since getting the game in here at Snackbar, it seems as if our writing team spends as much time making new designs as it does racing.

That trend seems to extend to others as well, as Tim Schafer’s Double Fine Productions has drawn attention to NeoGAF’s Cochese, who has worked up a fantastic Psychonauts-themed Forza 2 ride. Fantastic work, my man. Fantastic work.

While we may have found Nintendo’s latest Mario Party extravaganza to be a bit lacking, the company announced this morning that the game has been flying off the shelves in the US, selling through more than 550,000 copies since its release on May 29, making the game the fastest selling Mario Party game in like, ever.

Namco Bandai has opened up the official US website for Tri-Crescendo’s Xbox 360 RPG Eternal Sonata, simultaneously revealing a handful of positively stunning console faceplates users can swing for pre-ordering the game at either EBGames of Gamestop. I gotta say that I hope the pubs send one over this way in the march up to the game’s September release. My system is currently naked and in need of some full frontal lovin’.

I must say this week has been rough. Besides my normal rounds at Gamasutra, and then evenings writing for Snackbar, it’s been a stressful week all around as companies scramble to get invites out for E3 as I reciprocate their efforts by trying to fit in their last minute phone calls and emails into my quickly overflowing day planner.

But that’s it, I’m done. I think.

E3, like any other industry show, is about picking your battles. You can’t see and talk with everyone, so you have to choose the few that you think are important, throw in a few that genuinely appeal to your own sensibilities, and then cross your fingers as you hope and pray that some last minute change or delay does not hose your carefully hatched plan for journalistic domination.

This year is a wrench unto itself, with multiple hotels, a hanger housing God knows what out in the desert, and other non-E3 participants vying for your time elsewhere out and about the metropolis of Santa Monica. Plus, most of the major companies have setup press conferences nearly back to back as well, leaving little wiggle room for sit downs with smaller outfits or 1-on-1 interviews. Somewhere. somehow there is a RTS design document in all of this.

But as I said, I’ve done my best, and have put together a solid action plan for tackling the show. Now with another Snackbar ninja at my side helping me here, and Gamasutra and Insert Credit writer extraordinaire Brandon Sheffield at my side, I can breath an abbreviated sigh of relief. I feel confident. For now.