halo 3

Short but sweet, these two videos show the first brief snippets of Halo 3 in action from a beta test Bungie put on for some American troops in Iraq. Brian Crecente

halo 3 chilp2

Julian from SelectParks was at the recent 23rd Chaos Communication Congress leet haxor conf in Berlin, where Felix Domke presented his "Console Hacking 2006" talk. Julian, bless'im, took copious notes. What's 23C3?

23C3 was more a hackers mecca than an ethically pointed security conference; a festival celebrating media and technology reclamation where the right to repurpose and dissect technology is considered inseparable from the right to learn from it.

Amen to that. Julian's notes cover Felix's overview of the console hacking scene, along with starters for ten for those of you curious about how to take your beloved boxen apart to turn them into chore slaves. Mmm, chore slaves.

There's video and pics too. Alice Taylor

Console Hacking 2006

God Hand should have been a relative success. Developed by Clover and taking the rare, but much-needed step of poking fun at video game clichés, it's the kind of self-deferential breath of fresh air that this medium needed. Or at least that's what I thought. The "market" thought otherwise. The game's sunk without a trace, selling about four copies since its release, and never really set the critics on fire, either.

As you often get with games like God Hand, Beyond Good & Evil and Psychonauts, when a quality title is shunned by the masses people are bound to complain. Bitterly, and if you're really lucky, loudly. But this...this is a little different. Like the game itself, it's a refreshing break from the norm, a thoughtful treatise on why everyone who wrote God Hand off without giving it a chance just might have been missing the point. Luke Plunkett

God Hand [Hardcore Gaming 101]

What do you get when Dengeki Online ask a bunch of prominent Japanese developers about their upcoming 2007 titles? Fanboy-baiting comments? New game announcements?

Nope. You get nothing. Unless a whole bunch of "no comments" constitutes "something". Which it doesn't. So that's nothing.

It's almost as if there was a party official sitting in the room with them, pistol drawn, thinly-pursed lips locked in a menacing snarl that served as a warning to any developer that should he reveal even the slimmest morsel of information about his upcoming game he would be shot, his family thrown in the gulag and his name never heard again.

Come to think of it, it's kind of a shame the Soviet Union was never known for its game development. It would have made press releases a much simpler affair. It's also a shame these developers were so tight-lipped; there were a few hints dropped that the Wii was the mostest awesomest thing ever (PSU's Takao Miyoshi and my favourite Sega man, Yuuji Naka), but nothing official. So many developers and so little news...tsk tsk tsk, disappointing. Luke Plunkett

Japanese Developers Talk 2007 [RPG Fan, via NeoGAF]

If you're going to let people play your game before it's released, you may as well get guys and girls who have some reference point as to how a battle rifle actually works. Their feedback at this stage of development would be invaluable.

In what was either the afore-mentioned beta testing idea or a Christmas present to US soldiers in Iraq (admittedly, most probably the latter), Bungie flew some early-build copies of Halo 3 out so American troops not able to get home for the holidays could at least get some kind of Christmas cheer.

And what's best, we now have some screenshots (blurry shots are better than no shots) after the leap.

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Nich Maragos is Mr. Localization for Atlus. To get us on the same page, Atlus also published the awesome Contact. In an interview with Siliconera, he pulled up a chair (probably), lit up a cigarette (maybe) and spoke at length about how they're going about translating the dialogue for upcoming Atlus title Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja (Best. Name. Ever).

The localization process is always an interesting story when some effort and/or love goes into it (see Treehouse for reference), and this is no different. Most interesting is probably the approach taken towards the game's humour: already a slightly comedic game from the outset (unemployed ninjas find it hard to be taken seriously), the western release of Izuna sees some added gags from the title character.

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Kolton Mahoney, from Layton, Utah, scored a copy of Madden 07 for his 360 for Christmas. He was expecting to indulge in some football goodness. He got...some t&a.; Supposedly.

Kolton Mahoney was shocked when he put the Madden NFL 07 game in his new Xbox 360 console Christmas day and an explicit image popped up on his television screen.

The Mahoneys have been in contact with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force sponsored by the Utah Attorney General's Office, which will attempt to determine how porn ended up on the video game.

This story raises two key points:

1) This is a twelve year-old boy who complained about finding porn on his new 360 game?
2) Just what is he complaining about? How the hell can pornographic images appear on a single copy of Madden? If there was porn on new Madden discs, trust us, we'd know by now.

This whole thing smells fishy. Either the "explicit images" weren't on the disc at all (HDD, anyone?), or this is some balls-up involving some pirated pre-owned game. Trust both those options to be overlooked by the media if this story blows, up, however. Luke Plunkett

Unhappy Christmas surprise [Standard.net]

January 1. The first day of a new year. Time to do away with all those resolutions you drunkenly blurted out a few hours ago and come to the cold, harsh realisation that 2007 will in all likelihood transpire much like 2006 did. You won't diet. You won't get in touch with long-lost friends. You probably won't give to charity (though you damn well should), you won't quit smoking and you definitely won't quit drinking.

What you will all do, though, is keep popping in here to see our smiling faces. You wouldn't want to miss all the good stuff we've got planned for 2007, would you? No. Didn't think so.

Happy new years, everybody. Luke Plunkett

It's the end of the 2006, and the first batch of games of the new year is rather slim. Things start to ramp up again in the next couple of weeks, but until then we are still stuck in that barren wasteland of games that is always left behind after Christmas.

Flynn De Marco

Last week I posted a link to a piece Stephen Totilo wrote for MTV about his personal worst moments in video game journalism in 2006.

At the time, I emailed Totilo and asked if he would mind if I stole the idea from him. You see, 2006 was a bad year for me, book ended by two particularly horrific ordeals and since most of my days are marked by what games I am playing, what gaming stories I am writing, what gaming people I am talking to, it's hard for me to separate the two. I don't write this seeking pity, or attention, but to say thank you for being there for me, whether you knew it or not.

The Death of my niece and a small part of me
It's Feb. 16. Late. I'm playing Star Wars: Empire at War on my computer online against random gamers as I finish up my review of the game for the Rocky Mountain News.

The phone rings:

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Worth Playing keeps it coming with the weekend screen goodness. This time up they have 22 shots from Final Fantasy XIII for the PS3. FF XIII is one part of three games in the "Fabula Nova Crystallis" series. All three games will take place in different parts of the FF XIII universe.

These new screens look pretty sweet and I'm sure Final Fantasy fans every where are currently having a collective nerdgasm. Flynn De Marco

'Final Fantasy XIII' (PS3) - 22 New Screens [Worth Playing]

Don't forget to enter our Lost Planet contest for your chance to win one of ten copies of the Xbox 360 game.

You have until January 5 to construct something game-related out of ice, snow or sand, snap a pic and send it in. Hit the link for the details.

Contest: Use Ice, Snow, Sand, Win Lost Planet [Kotaku]

1991: Hi Tech Expressions releases Barbie for the NES in the US. This is also the night that your NES cried itself to sleep for the first time.

1994: Human Entertainment releases Tae Kwon Do for the SNES in the US. Writing this makes me crave a good 2D brawler to waste the weekend away. Is Xbox Live still brawlerless?

2006: Has this been an incredible year to be a gamer or what? What was your favorite gaming event of the year?Mark Wilson

Have gaming history, trivia, or famous birthdays you'd like to see in TDIG? Drop us a line at tdig@kotaku.com

Here's a little throw back to 1982 with a commercial from Mattel promoting the Intellivision game Lock n' Chase. The kid in the commercial is none other than E.T.'s best buddy, Henry Thomas. Not too sure if this came before of after E.T., but my guess would be before. You notice you didn't see Henry promoting the E.T. video game... Flynn De Marco

Major Nelson has published Xbox Live's Top Games of 2006. There are three separate lists that encompass Xbox 360 titles, Arcade Titles, and original Xbox Titles. Here are the Top 10 Xbox 360 titles for 2006 based on Xbox Live connectivity:

• 1 - Gears of War
• 2 - Hexic HD
• 3 - Call of Duty 2
• 4 - Ghost Recon 3
• 5 - Oblivion
• 6 - PGR3
• 7 - Perfect Dark Zero
• 8 - Call Of Duty 3
• 9 - UNO
• 10 EA SPORTS™ Fight Night Round 3

To check out all three lists, which list the top 20 games in all categories, visit Major Nelson's website.

Top Xbox Live Games of 2006

Website Maxconsole had posted this page from the "current" issue of UK OPM magazine stating that Bioshock was coming to the PS3. I saw this on a tip from a reader and also noticed it was quite high on Digg and on initial research, found PS3 pages for the game on all the major game sites. So, I posted an article about it. But, I apparently didn't dig deep enough.

Some readers dug a bit further and discovered that this was actually a scan from a September issue of OPM. If you read about this here earlier or saw it on Digg or read it on Maxconsole, be assured this is not from a current issue of the magazine. There are no current plans to bring Bioshock to the PS3 as of yet. Thanks to you guys who pointed this out. Flynn De Marco

UPDATE: This turned out to be an old scan. Read about it here.

The folks at 2k Games just can't make up their minds whether their new hybrid first person shooter, Bioshock, will be coming out for the PS3. When first announced, the title was set to be released on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. Then at the X06 event back in September, Microsoft stated that, in fact, Bioshock would not be released for the PS3, but would be a PC/Xbox 360 exclusive.

Now it seems they've changed their minds yet again. According to the latest issue of UK Official Playstation Magazine, the title is once again confirmed for Sony's next gen console. Certainly, having such a highly anticipated title on their new system would be a boon for Sony, but what's with all the back and forth? It also brings up questions about exclusive titles. How important are they in helping to sell a system?

Have you ever bought a console because it had an exclusive title that you just couldn't resist? Flynn De Marco

Bioshock No Longer PC & Xbox 360 Exclusive - Heading to PS3! [Maxconsole - Thanks, Tristan]

It's the end of the year and Toys "R" Us is starting their yearly clearance of games and Cheap Ass Gamer has posted a list of all the games currently on sale. There's quite a lot of titles there, although not a lot of really great ones. Still, there are enough gems in there to be able to pick up something on the cheap that perhaps you overlooked at first or simply couldn't afford at the time.

I'll be heading down to my local TRU later to see exactly what they might have hanging around. As it's in a more out of the way part of town, I'm hoping to turn up some good deals. Make the jump for the full list including prices. Flynn De Marco

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