Those little animated spots you see at the beginning or end of TV shows are called "vanity cards,"and while they usually have a production company's logo or something (think "Grrr Arrgh" from Buffy), they're sometimes a bit more unusual, like these R&D spots for Battlestar Galactica. With the current debate over whether or not videogames cause violence, it seemed important to reveal that the real danger apparently lies in coming up with ideas for popular Sci Fi Network shows. Plus, I just thought it was funny and wanted to share.

To unlock the mysteries of a guy's mind, all you really need to do is find out what game console he has, at least according to an article over at   MSN.

A NY psychologist, the chairman of the Game & Simulation program at DeVry University in Dallas, the CEO of the Global Gaming League, and the editor in chief of GameTrailers all provided insight as to just what a man's choice of console says about him.

A fella with a PS3, for example, "is your 21st-century individual who enjoys gaming and demands the best out of his experience—and probably his women," but a 360 owner "may be living out an active and social life through games, because they are a bit on the shy side."

Our favorite revelations follow.

Continue reading "What Your Choice of Gaming Console Says About You" »

Add a new color to the roster of Japanese PSPs: Deep Red. Going on sale December 13th, the Deep Red comes either with a 1seg digital TV tuner or without. The 1seg version also sports a 1 GB memory stick and a stand (the better for TV watching, we suppose), while the other one has just a 32 MB stick and no stand.

Am I the only one who thinks that Japan gets all the best colors and/or versions of handhelds? The Star Wars PSP was sweet, for sure, but as a rule it seems like Japan's portables are have the edge, aesthetics-wise.

Many fans show their appreciation for beloved games with fanfic, cosplay, or cakes, but Joe Fourhman went a bit further and created Fatal Frame: The Card Game, a remarkably detailed and well thought-out game based on the creepy PS2 title.

It's actually based on Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly, using art and images from the game. Two to four players explore All God's Village, hunting ghosts with their Camera Obscuras. Battle takes place via Action cards, and various locations from the game are explored using separate minidecks.

It's unauthorized, unofficial, and non-collectible, but it is free. All you have to do is print out the three decks yourself, handily provided in PDF format.

Fatal Frame: The Card Game [Fourhman.com]

Following statements from Electronic Arts that the publisher won't be able to meet all the demand for Rock Band this holiday, Guitar Hero maker Activision has said that they won't have enough copies of their rock game, either.

Actually, what they specifically said was, "there's a probability that this holiday we won't be able to supply all the demand for every platform."

Continue reading "Activision: Guitar Hero Won't Meet Demand, Either" »

Rockstar Games isn't on the hook for the fact that hackers have removed the censorship filters from the PSP version of Manhunt 2, says Entertainment Software Ratings Board president Patricia Vance. What's more, she doesn't believe that the hack would change the game's rating.

Contrary to some reports... we do not believe these modifications fully restore the product to the version that originally received an AO rating, nor is this a matter of unlocking content.

Well, hey. If restoring the game's killing sequences to their original unretouched grossness doesn't raise the game from an M to an AO, Rockstar should totally release a "Director's Cut" version of the game, don't you think?

At any rate, Vance says that because Rockstar was totally upfront with the board about the content in the game, they don't believe that they omitted any required information from their submission.

[via Ars Technica]

In preparation for the release of Time Crisis 4 on PlayStation 3, the game's director Takashi Satsukawa writes on PlayStation Dot Blog about the creation of the light gun controller, plus pics of early concept art and the first prototype.

We asked our designer to come up with a few illustrations showing a Guncon with one analog stick. After getting the results, we realized that this was going to be a more intimidating project than we had planned! [...] As we understood that we would have to implement vertical aiming in our game, we decided to revise our Guncon hardware designs to meet this goal.

Time Crisis 4: Creating The GunCon 3 [PlayStation.Blog]

If you haven't gotten into the old-school point-and-click psychopathic-rabbit hilarity of the Sam and Max games yet, now is the time. You can download the fourth episode of last season, Abe Lincoln Must Die, from FilePlanet for no cost.

As near as I can figure, there's no catch, no Game Of The Month club to sign up for -- just a free game, on the assumption that you'll get so hooked that you'll buy the other five episodes, then subscribe to Season 2, which begins today.

Abe Lincoln Must Die was easily one of the best episodes last season, with harder puzzles, more humor, and a longer adventure overall. Go play it. It's free.

Abe Lincoln Must Die [FilePlanet]

Ubisoft announced today that it will acquire Digital Kids, a game developer based in Japan.

The developer, employing about 20 people and having offices in Nagoya and Osaka, has created Nintendo DS games in Ubisoft's popular Petz series (examples at right).

Certainly this demonstrates further commitment by Ubisoft to this series, but I'm more interested in the fact that you very rarely hear about a Western company acquiring a Japanese developer. I'm sure Microsoft, for example, has tried, but the keiretsu system of entangled stock ownerships makes such things very complicated.

Might we see more Western companies swooping in and buying up very small outfits like this before anyone else has the chance, then building them up to have their own wholly-owned source of Japanese flavor? Or am I making too big a deal out of a kids' pet sim series?

Ubisoft Acquires Japanese Hamsterz Life Developer [Gamasutra]

Playboy.com has a supplement to the feature on Geniuses At Play from the November issue, a series of interviews with some of the industry's biggest names, including Sony's Phil Harrison, Harmonix's Alex Rigopoulos, David Jaffe, and Tim Schafer. During his interview, Schafer explains his thoughts on creating sequels to games like Grim Fandango or Psychonauts:

Schafer: I would love to go back and spend time with the characters from any game I've worked on, and I would love to make a sequel to any of them. But I also want to make something new. If there were five of me I might make sequels, but there's always some new idea I want to explore.
Playboy: What if you had the opportunity to farm out a sequel -- not farm out in a negative sense, but...
Schafer: Phone it in? Squeeze it out?
Playboy: If you could give the reins to someone you trusted to execute a Psychonauts sequel, where you had basic veto power and could do general shaping...
Schafer: It just all depends on the person. If it was a team that I knew and trusted then, yeah, that would be great. The team that made Monkey Island 3 was not under our control at all. They were really clever, smart guys and they wrote really great dialogue so in that case it worked out great.

Doesn't mean we'll never see sequels, but don't go holding your breath. Given that Playboy isn't particularly geared towards a gaming audience, much of the material covered is stuff you've heard before, but it's a good read just the same. Just remember that though it is the game section, you're still at Playboy's site, so choose your viewing area appropriately.

Geniuses At Play [Playboy]

If you buy the PlayStation 2 version of Rock Band this December 18, you'll be able to use the wireless guitar that comes with it on the PlayStation 3 version of the game, if you ever decide to upgrade.

It's quite likely that the drum controller and microphone will also work between the two platforms, since they both use standard USB interfaces.

That little nugget of info came from a press release this morning that says Rock Band has gone gold and is in final manufacturing. Well, yeah. I think it went gold a long time ago, and you probably could have figured that out by the fact that Game|Life has a final copy.

Continue reading "PlayStation 2 Rock Band Wireless Guitar Works With PS3" »

A member of the TeamXbox forums apparently bought a Guitar Hero III keychain and discovered a pamphlet describing a "Parental Timer" as one of the 360's features. If you're concerned that reading the blurry pic will ruin your eyesight, here's what it says:

Family Timer: A simple tool that lets you manage how much time your kids spend on their Xbox360. Manage time in daily or weekly increments. Easy for parents to suspend or add time. Available in December 2007 only through Xbox Live.

I've certainly heard worse ideas, but then again, nobody's going to be hitting that switch on my 360.

Photo courtesy of Xbox Today.

Report: Xbox 360 Parental Timer is a Go [Xbox Today, via Joystiq]

This week's offerings over at the Xbox Live Arcade are definitely meant to give your brain a healthy workout. Word Puzzle's core gameplay is basically a seek-n-find from puzzle magazines, but throws in  combos, word bombs, and versus play to keep it interesting. If you're not into finding a list of words hidden in a grid of letters, then you probably won't be lured in by the game's five different modes, but word puzzle fans will likely find it worthy of the 800 point price tag.

Switchball, also 800 points, has you guiding a ball along a twisty-turny midair track, working your way past obstacles like wooden blocks, spinning fans, and cannons. You can morph your marble into different materials to best suit the situation, like the floating airball or a superheavy metal ball. Sounds kind of like Super Monkey Ball meets Mercury.

Both games will be available this Wednesday.

Clive Thompson's column this week is all about Halo 3, and the suicide-bomber tactics he's been using to score some Pyrrhic victories. Specifically, he runs up to an opponent that's outclassing him, puts himself right in the line of fire, but sticks a plasma grenade to them before they take him down.

The structure of Xbox Live creates a world composed of two classes -- haves and have-nots. And, just as in the real world, some of the disgruntled have-nots are all too willing to toss their lives away -- just for the satisfaction of momentarily halting the progress of the haves. Since the game instantly resurrects me, I have no real dread of death in Halo 3.

Suicide Bombing Makes Sick Sense In Halo 3 [Wired]

After announcing at this year's FanFest that Trinity, the next expansion to space MMO Eve Online will be released the first week of December, CCP revealed that the company is in the process of building one of Europe's largest supercomputers to eliminate lag.

Trinity will feature 20 new ships as well as enhancements to the game's mission and drone systems. It will also include an enormous graphical overhaul; more than 500 ships have been redrawn from scratch. CCP also announced that the Ambulation Project, due out next year, will let players use human avatars for the first time.

Eve: Trinity due first week in December [GamesIndustry]

Baker is apparently in love with the Something Awful crowd's gallery full of Portal-inspired Photoshops. I don't know. It didn't have me rolling the same way other Phridays have, probably because the nature of Portal jokes means you kind of have to sit there and stare at it for a while and mentally piece together what's happening before it's funny, and by the time you do that it's no longer funny. Maybe. I don't know the science behind it.

Thinking With Portals [Something Awful]

America's Virtual Console November might have just kicked off with a bang, but Japan's fall harvest looks... well, it looks alright.

By far the most monumental release will likely be King of Fighters '94, the game that kicked off the NeoGeo's annual line of wildly popular crossover fighting games. Two other NeoGeo games are on tap for November: Top Hunter and Baseball Stars 2.

Square Enix, meanwhile, continues its crusade to prove that Japan won't buy Virtual Console games by releasing only the worst titles of its back catalog; this month brings the execrable action game King's Knight.

The full list is below.

Continue reading "Japan Virtual Console: King of Fighters, 16 More" »

Child's Play, the non-profit organization started by Penny Arcade, has kicked off its yearly charity drive. In case you're unfamiliar, Child's Play works with hospitals across the country to set up wish lists for videogames, toys, and movies.

Through Amazon.com, you can purchase an item on an individual hospital's list and it will be sent to them, either to be given to an individual child, or kept in house for all children to enjoy.

Child's Play hosts a highly successful annual dinner auction each year, as well, and has scheduled this year's event for December 11th, at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle, Washington. The semiformal shindig includes a silent auction, a live auction, and tasty morsels, so come well dressed and hungry. Last year's dinner earned more than $200,000 for the charity; hopefully this year will beat that.

You can find more information about Child's Play here.

This week in Virtual Console brings us one of the premier games in Nintendo's back catalog: Super Mario Brothers Threeeeeeeeeeeeee ("get the warp whistle, Jimmy!"). In a fit of generosity, Nintendo didn't even jack up the price for no reason.

Also, whereas in the past when Nintendo would offer a huge blockbuster like this they'd take the opportunity to not put any other games on the service the same week, they actually released two more games. And one of them might be just as huge: Alien Soldier, a previously Japan-and-Europe-only Genesis shooter by Treasure. Oh, it was released via the Sega Channel download service in the US, but come on, nobody had that. Power Golf for TurboGrafx rounds things out.

The Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition for PS3 and 360  has some of the usual extras, like the Making Of and a soundtrack, but it also comes with Volume 1 of Devil May Cry: The Animated Series on DVD, which includes the first  four episodes of the series. Not too shabby.

The Special Edition also includes a digital art book and content for your PC, like wallpapers, screen savers and such. The price tag is a somewhat intimidating $80, but  Volume 1 of DMC:TAS  retails for $30, so you do end up saving a bit of money. Plus it comes in a shiny metal case!

Cubicle Freakout [Eyegas]

Physical playing cards are neat because they're portable and you can play practically anywhere. Online virtual card games are handy because the computer handles the dealing and shuffling, and you can play with strangers and be reasonably sure they're not cheating. With The Eye of Judgment for the Playstation 3, Sony manages the impressive feat of combining physical cards with online gaming while eliminating the advantages of each.

The game includes a camera, a playmat, and a mess of game cards. You play the game under the watchful gaze of the camera, and the Playstation 3 renders the proceedings on your TV screen, turning the mundane game in front of you into, well, the same game with nicer graphics. You can play against the computer, against another human being sitting at a table in front of your television with you, or online.

Continue reading "Review: The Eye of Judgment Doesn't Have Much Fun in the Cards" »

By far the most compelling application of Rock Band, for me, is going to be singing and playing an instrument all at once. Hence, this video, in which I demonstrate how much fun it is to play "Say It Ain't So" on the Rock Band awesome Fender Stratocaster guitar controller while wailing into a microphone about how Daddy cleaned up and found Jesus.

Try to find where I totally blow the words, because remember, it's not actually possible to read the words on screen while you're following the guitar pattern. So if you're going to do this, you have to do it with a song you already have pretty much memorized. Which I obviously haven't, so be aware that I'm just throwing myself out there in the open for you people.

Phantom Mansion is an ongoing series of puzzling time-killers over at Gimme5Games.com, and its spooky trappings fit well with the day's festivities. Behind each door of the mansion lies a progressively more difficult puzzle. The first few rooms are quite easy, but the game gets tricky fairly quickly.

The object of each puzzle is to collect all the souls (those glowing skulls) in the room, then make your way to the exit, but locked doors, pits, cracked floors and zombies are just a few of the obstacles getting in your way. So far only the Red and Orange rooms are available--six more colors are promised for future releases.

Gimme5 also has Trick or Treat Xtreme, but it's fairly stupid and you'll likely become bored with it after just a minute or two.

Phantom Mansion [Gimme5Games]

This trailer for Condemned 2 (PS3, 3600 is far, far, far too short for our liking here at Game|Life, but we'll take what we can get. Condemned was genuinely unnerving, and it looks like the sequel will deliver in that department, too. (What the hell did that guy just spit all over me???) The audio seems really low, for some reason, so you may have to turn your sound up to hear the dialog. (No, it's not a prank, I'm serious.)

Rock Band's full track list numbers 58 hard rockin' tunes spanning five decades. But what will be open to you at the very beginning of the game? Here's what you and your friends can rock out to without playing through the Tour modes, first:

Beginner:
Say It Ain't So - Weezer
In Bloom - Nirvana
I Think I'm Paranoid - Garbage
Mississippi Queen - Mountain (cover song)
Here It Goes Again - OK Go

Apprentice:
Creep - Radiohead
Wave of Mutilation - Pixies
Should I Stay Or Should I Go - The Clash
Maps - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Gimme Shelter - The Rolling Stones

If you found yourself chuckling as your worked your way through the puzzles of Portal, you have Erik Wolpaw to thank. In an interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Wolpaw, half of Old Man Murray and a co-writer of Psychonauts, describes what it was like to work with Tim Schafer, talks about sex offenders in North Carolina, and generally reveals himself to be an exceptionally funny guy. He also explains that whole cake thing in Portal:

Well, there are lots of message games coming out now. Like they’ve got something really important to get off their chest about the war in Iraq or the player is forced to make some dicey underwater moral choices. Really, just a whole heck of a lot of stuff to think about. With that in mind, at the beginning of the Portal development process, we sat down as a group to decide what philosopher or school of philosophy our game would be based on. That was followed by about fifteen minutes of silence and then someone mentioned that a lot of people like cake.

Mmmmm....cake.

RPS Interview: Valve's Erik Wolpaw [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Assembling the Rock Band drum kit controller is actually really easy, but we here at Game|Life realize that some of you are going to need extra help anyway.

So, you'll find the six-step instructions below.

Continue reading "How To: Assemble Your Rock Band Drum Kit" »

When you buy Rock Band, be prepared for an absolute onslaught of packaging.

Not only is the box itself absolutely gigantic, but the drums, guitar, microphone, game, USB hub, and assorted other miscellany are all shoved in there with the utmost precision and care. They do love their peripherals at Harmonix, as if they were small plastic children that you hit with sticks.

I tore into the box like it was Christmas morning, and the pictorial results are below.

Continue reading "Gallery: Rock Band, Unboxed" »

That's right, kids. The nice UPS man came this morning and the Game|Life offices took delivery of our very own Rock Band bundle of joy.

Look forward to unboxing pics. And then gameplay videos of me singing my lungs out or something. It's going to be a great day, until 2:30 when I have to leave the house, and then it will be sad.

But stick around for four hours of unadulterated bliss.

In honor of Halloween, or perhaps more appropriately for the Day of the Dead,  GameTap has compiled a list of great games featuring His Deathness, the Grim Reaper. Most videogames involve one form of death or another, but his personal appearances are less common.

Though GameTap's list does include fine examples of Death's starring roles, like Grim Fandango (who knew death could be so suave?) and Death Jr. (he's just so adorable), they sadly leave out his appearance in Conker's Bad Fur Day, which always made me chuckle.

Other games that make the list include Paperboy, Medievil, Gauntlet, and Guitar Hero. If you can think of any others that should've made it, let us know.

Don't Fear the Reaper [GameTap]

TiVo alert: the SciFi Channel will be airing a special on Mass Effect several times in November. Unfortunately, the first showing isn't until 11pm ET on November 20th, the day the game launches, so you won't be getting a real sneak peek, but  it should be a fun look into the game, just the same.

Sci Fi also has some sort of Mass Effect giveaway planned, though they don't have details on that just yet. You can check out the full schedule for airings of the special here--most of them are at awkward times of day, so your best bet is probably to record them.

Mass Effect [SciFi.com]

War, huh, good god, y'all, what is it good for? Well, not apparently, for making decent games, at least according to Yahtzee's take on Medal of Honor:Airborne. Phrases of the week include "retard babies," "all-American apple pie-shitting bullet magnet," and "highway to Nazi bullet bum-rape." Also be on the lookout for the "sock in mustard" reference.

The Video Marketplace is one of Xbox Live's greatest features, granting you 'round the clock access to hundreds of movies, which can come in particularly handy when you're in the mood for a Halloween scare, but the only horror movie left on the shelves of the local Blockbuster is Zombies Gone Wild: The College Years.

Unfortunately, not all of the movies on the Marketplace are good; in fact, some of them are so bad that merely turning them on in the presences of others will send your party guests fleeing from the room, forevermore earning you the rep of "the guy who ruined Halloween."

To spare you such humiliation, and to keep you from wasting precious Microsoft Points, here are some of the movies you should avoid at all costs.

Continue reading "These Xbox Live Movies Will Ruin Your Halloween" »

You didn't like any of our previous costume suggestions, but you still really want to dress up as a videogame character for tonight's festivities. We admire your spirit, if not your ability to plan ahead. GamePro Family has a few more suggestions for you. Some, like going as Crypto from Destroy All Humans probably require a bit more prep time than you have at your disposal, but others, like the Mii, can be whipped up pretty easily.

Cooking Mama, Phoenix Wright, and anyone from Guitar Hero are not only pretty do-able on short notice, but also show that you have excellent taste in games. Or at least game characters. 

The 20 Best Video Game Inspired Halloween Costumes [GamePro Family]

Many 360 owners consider their Gamerscore to be a badge of honor and are willing to do just about anything to pump it up, but Microsoft's Major Nelson says you'll be sorry if you stoop to cheating.

In a recent blog post, he explains that "If you decide to employ some nefarious techniques to artificially increase your Gamerscore or obtain achievements by manipulating the Xbox software without playing the game, bad things will happen." Bad things like your Gamerscore being removed, leaving you unable to re-earn the Achievements you once had. Or, worse, your account and/or console might be banned from Xbox Live.

The Major also cautions against giving anyone your Live ID and password, because if said person decides not to give it back, the only solution is to cancel that ID for good, which means bye-bye Gamertag and Gamerscore. In short, don't cheat and don't be dumb with your info. And that's one to grow on.

Xbox Live account sharing and Gamesave tampering (don't do it) [Major Nelson]

Naruto purists may be displeased with the voicework in Naruto:Rise of a Ninja for the 360, but fortunately they won't have to put up with it for long. The game is due out tomorrow (Friday in Europe), but Ubisoft has announced that the voices of the original Japanese cast will soon be available for free download on Xbox Live.

The voices include:

• Junko Takeuchi - Uzumaki Naruto
• Kazuhiko Inoue - Hatake Kakashi
• Chie Nakamura - Haruno Sakura
• Noriaki Sugiyama - Uchiha Sasuke
• Kujira - Orochimaru
• Akira Ishida - Sabaku no Gaara

Why weren't they included in the actual game? We're guessing someone ran out of time.

European fans of Dragon Ball Z, listen up: Atari has announced that there will be a special Collector's Edition of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 for the PS2.

Due for release on November 9th, it will contain a giant wall poster, featuring dozens of DBZ characters, and a 50-page digital art book that chronicles the creation of the  game's characters and environments.

The PS2 version of Tenkaichi 3 also features the  "Disc Fusion System,"  which unlocks new gameplay modes when you put in either Tenkaichi 1 or 2.

It's Halloween, but as usual, you've let your costume go until the last minute, right? You could wear one of those lame "This IS my costume" t-shirts, or worse, the rainbow clown wig, or you could get a bit more creative and go with one of the costumes suggested by the guys at Vintage Computing and Gaming.

Is anyone going to recognize you if you dress up as Keith Courage's dad or the Missile Commander? Probably not, but you'll know how creative and awesome your costume is, and that's really all that matters. I think I like the Adventure square idea the best. Not only does it pay homage to one of my favorite games, it's also dead simple.

We'll likely be adding more of these as the day wears on, so if you don't like these ideas, check back frequently. We'll come up with something for you to wear, we promise.

Halloween Video Game Costume Ideas [Vintage Computing and Gaming]

Galactic Gravity Golf is a clever name for a game that might be familiar if you've played many Flash games. You shoot a projectile and try to get it to the target without hitting the planets in between, which work the magic of gravitational attraction on your missile. There are a couple nice touches involving fuel and jewels, making this an enjoyable, if not entirely original, game.

Galactic Gravity Golf [Gameshot]

We here at Game|Life have been all over Nintendo of America about the Wii's Virtual Console game download service in the nearly-a-year-now since the console's launch. While things have vastly improved since then, it still seems sometimes that the US lineup doesn't measure up to those of other territories.

But is this actually true, nearly-a-year-now since launch? To find the answer, I'm going to list below all the games that fall into two categories:

1. Games that have been released in the US, but not yet on Virtual Console
2. Games that haven't been released in the US, but have been released in other non-Japanese territories

These two categories combined will show what America is missing out on. Is it a vast discrepancy, or just a minor annoyance? The results are below.

Continue reading "Wii's Virtual Console: What America Is Missing" »

Japan's full, rich, luxurious Virtual Console experience continues unabated this month. Last month brought a flood of 19 games; this month, that number jumps to twenty.

There's three NeoGeo games, three Turbo CD titles, and a whole mess of other stuff like Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari, generally referred to here by the name River City Ransom (right).

And Square Enix makes a less-than-auspicious return to Virtual Console with Hanjuku Hero for Famicom, a comedy strategy RPG that will never, ever be released outside Japan. Good choice, guys. It couldn't have been Rad Racer?

Also note that while Turbo CD games will begin appearing in the US and Japan this month, the initial release lineups are completely different. America gets Gates of Thunder and Super Air Zonk, but Japan's lineup is the RPG compilation Ys I and II, the homoerotic shooter Choaniki, and Gradius II.

Finally, I should note that some of these titles have actually already been released in the US -- Yoshi's Story, Donkey Kong Country 2, and Streets of Rage. So it's not as if we're falling too far behind. Or as far behind as we could be falling.

The full list with prices is below!

Continue reading "Turbo CD, 20 Games: Another Content-Rich Month For Japan Virtual Console" »

It's time to clear off some of your precious Wii onboard memory, because Turbo CD games are coming to the US and Japan this month. In the land of the free, the first two CD games will be Gates of Thunder and Super Air Zonk (right).

I did a double-take on that second one, because I had no idea this was even a game. I just thought there was one Air Zonk game, and that it had already been released for the TurboGrafx cartridge format. Which it had, but apparently it was followed up by a super-rare sequel that fetches $150 on eBay.

Well, now you can have it for only $8. If you can't bring yourself to spend that much, there's a regular TurboChip title inbound this month for $6: Namco's Samurai Ghost.

We here at Game|Life would like to take this time to express our heartfelt thanks as consumers to Hudson's American branch for announcing the month's Virtual Console titles in advance, and reiterate our position that Nintendo, Sega, and now SNK should follow suit.

Titles [Hudson Soft]

It's time for another installment of How Late Is This Game? Why on Earth Namco Bandai thought it would be a good idea to produce not one but two Taiko no Tatsujin games for the PSP but not use the DS' touch screen as a drum controller is totally beyond me. Taiko DS might be about three years behind schedule, but here it is. And although the implementation was never going to be perfect, it's pretty awesome.

The DS' touch screen can't register multiple inputs, so you technically don't need the two oversized drumstick styli that are included with the game. But they sure do make it fun. We discovered, however, that we were doing it wrong: instead of holding the stylus like a pen and poking at the screen as if you were playing Ouendan, it wanted us to hold them
like drumsticks and tap lightly with the sides of the styli. This made the game a bit less accurate at first, but it was more fun since you could have an alternating left-right rhythm this way.

Also, I think holding them like pens and furiously pounding on your DS screen might not be the healthiest thing for it. That said, I'm still not sure which I prefer.

Having a stand for one's Nintendo DS Lite is becoming a more and more important for the discriminating DS player. I'd wanted to buy one for a while, but I felt that certainly there had to be a solution more portable and less flimsy than the plastic stands I'd seen my friends use.

I (mostly) found the answer in the Magnet Stand, a first-party Nintendo peripheral that they've got over there in Japan. At a mere 1200 yen or so, it's an inexpensive and sturdy multi-faceted solution.

The stand attaches to the DS via the Game Boy Advance slot on the bottom. No extra clips are necessary, you just slot it in as if it was a GBA cart. Clever, convenient, and stable. In the regular mode, as you can see at right, it has four adjustable depth settings. It also folds up and snaps together for easy portability.

But there's more!

Continue reading "TGS Haul: DS Magnet Stand Impressions" »

Best TGS swag ever? If you braved the line for Level 5's massive booth (which even us jetlagged journalists had to), you could grab this limited-edition DS cartridge, which featured the TGS demo of their upcoming soccer RPG Inazuma Eleven.

It's pretty good. But more to the point, the disc contains a never-available-anywhere-else side story in the Professor Layton series, that connects the fantastic original game to the upcoming sequel. Emily and I played both of these on the plane back from Tokyo; impressions are below.

Continue reading "TGS Haul: Level 5 Premium Silver Hands-On" »

The release of Halo 3 this week was an event that stretched far beyond our little gaming world. Everyone from the New York Times to Mother Jones wanted to cover it. And when journalists outside the gamer bubble turn their attentions to game stories, that's when you end up with some unexpected responses. Examples:

• The New York Times says what Xbox fanboys really don't want to hear -- that to the average person's point of view, Halo 3 is pretty much Halo 2 with nicer graphics. "If you played Halo 2 and couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about, Halo 3 is not the revelatory experience that will change your view of the series forever."
• Mother Jones takes issue with the current state of anonymous online gameplay: "An old friend once told me that playing Halo online was an eye-opening experience: 'I always knew there were racists and anti-Semites and homophobes,' he said, 'But I didn't really know how many there were until I started playing Halo on Xbox Live.'"

Continue reading "Halo 3: The Mainstream Press Responds" »

On the front page this morning, a piece on Microsoft's and Blizzard's new license agreements for machinima makers, comparing and contrasting the two:

Fred von Lohmann, an Electronic Frontier Federation senior staff attorney who examined both sets of rules, said the main difference between them lies in a user's base set of rights. Blizzard includes an end-user licensing agreement with its game, essentially stripping players of all rights regarding its use for anything other than how it was intended. Now the company has given rights back to the player in the form of the machinima license.

Microsoft, on the other hand, requires no such EULA to play the Halo games, so players retain their fair-use rights -- they're protected under the law so long as they use only small portions of the original work and aren't selling their creations. However, Microsoft's machinima license is more restrictive than Blizzard's, which allows creators to use anything in the game, including sound effects, and permits sites to charge to view the work, so long as a free version (typically one of lower resolution) exists on the site.

Machinima Licenses Spell Out New Rules [Wired]

In New York City this weekend? Want to get your hands on the latest Legend of Zelda three days early?

Head over to the Nintendo World Store in Rockefeller Center on Sunday, September 30 for the Phantom Hourglass launch party. Get your picture taken with Link! Watch or participate in a Zelda cosplay contest! Then, from 2-4 PM, be one of the first to buy the awesome, awesome, awesome new game for Nintendo DS.

There will also be a "museum display" with "one-of-a-kind Zelda items." What'll be in there? NY Game|Lifers are encouraged to go and take pics.

Square Enix won't be happy until three-quarters of its income comes from foreign sources. That's the word from president Yoichi Wada, in a statement released today on the company's web site (PDF).

"It is crucial for use to expand our businesses on a global basis," Wada began. He went on to explain that, contrary to a recent Financial Times article, 50% of Square Enix's total revenue comes from outside Japan.

Continue reading "Square Enix President: We Need More Global Expansion" »

Is the new Xbox 360 RPG Blue Dragon just too easy for your tastes? Ramp up the difficulty with a new download, available today on Xbox Live Marketplace.

The free update adds a Hard mode to the game, but also a "New Game Plus" mode that lets you start the game a second time while keeping your character stats from the end of your first round. Finally, an Impossible Mode that's meant to be used only with a New Game Plus save has been added for maximum challenge.

Marketplace Roundup [Major Nelson]

The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Rock Band will ship on November 23 at the lower-than-expected price of $170, Wired News learned this morning.

In addition, a PlayStation 2 version of the game will also be released this holiday season. It will be in stores December 10 at a price of $160.

The price of the next-gen console versions of Rock Band was originally set at $200, so this $30 price reduction has got to be great news for all would-be purchasers. And with a PlayStation 2 version inbound, this means that Rock Band is going to make an even bigger splash this holiday.

More as it breaks.

Apparently concerned that Canadians aren't getting enough Halo in their diet, Microsoft is running a Canuck-only contest called The 33 Days of Halo. Prizes include a 50" Samsung HDTV and a Halo-branded 2007 Volvo C30 T5 automatic.

Entry is a several step process. First step: get yourself an Xbox Live Gold account. Step two: choose the blue, red,  or white gamerpic. Step three: complete the gaming criteria associated with your chosen color by October 27th. Here's what you'll have to do for each color:

Blue: Play 33 hours of Halo 3 in 33 days (prize: TV)
Red: Play 33 multiplayer games of Halo 3 in 33 days (prize: car)
White: Play co-op campaign with three friends on Live (prize: Friends pack including Halo 360s, headsets, and controllers)

At the end of the 33 days, players from each color group who have managed to finish their assigned task will be selected at random to take home the goodies. A bit complicated, but it shouldn't be too difficult to complete those homework assignments. For full details, click here.

Canada Gets 33 Days of Halo 3 [Xbox 360 Fanboy]

If the actual gameplay of The Simpsons Game (PS2, PS3, 360, Wii) is half as good as the game's trailers, it'll be GOTY material. It's hard to decide what to like best about this Neverquest trailer: the brief homage to Joust, the nod to The Lord of the Rings, or "My ears are pointy!"

Some folks believe success at the absurdly addictive Peggle is a matter of luck, but masters know it's a combination of skill, know-how....and luck. Rather than leave you mindlessly flinging balls around, wasting shots and racking up scores so low that small children will laugh and point at you, PopCap has provided a Strategy Guide to help you hone those mad Peggling skillz.

The Guide walks you through the basics of aiming, timing, and scoring, and provides tactics for the best way to clear your way through all the various challenges. You'll have to sign up for PopCap's newsletter to get at the guide, which is a bit of a pain, but at least it's quick.

Zombie Massacre might sound like one of those lawsuit-avoiding game names created for a TV show (a la Bonestorm),  but it's actually the latest game that's being made into a movie by Uwe Boll. What's it like? Well, let's see what the game's producer, Ben Krotin, has to say:

In essence, Zombie Massacre is a cross between the games Crazy Taxi and House of the Dead, with a pinch of Blast Corps. thrown in for taste.

No wonder Boll wanted to get his hands on it. This won't be Boll's first encounter with zombies, of course; he adapted House of the Dead for the silver screen, too. He wants Zombie Massacre to have more in common with the creepy 28 Days Later than the campy House of the Dead, however.

The goal of Wii exclusive Zombie Massacre is to drive a nuclear warhead into the center of a zombie-infested city, then get the hell outta dodge. Its  mix of driving and shooting for up to four players has yet to find a publisher, though, so no telling when you'll actually get to try it.

Uwe Boll Returns to the Undead [GameDaily]

It seems that virtual town hall meetings and campaign offices in Second Life are no longer as en vogue as they once were.

At a new media forum sponsored by Politico and Waggener Edstrom, strategists for Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Rudy Guiliani, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama discussed various types of "e-strategy," agreeing that web-based tactics are vital to modern campaigns, but doubting the efficacy of campaigning in Second Life:

The panelists also doubted the usefulness, for now, of campaigning in the online universe Second Life, in which some candidates have virtual campaign offices. They also wondered how the convertibility of online currency into real cash would translate into politics. How, Henke [media consultant for Fred Thompson] wondered, will campaign finance regulations handle a contribution in the form of imaginary gold doubloons?

The secret to a successful political campaign? It's all about proper use of Lolcats, people. You heard me.

Strategists debate Web-savvy campaigns [Politico, via GamePolitics]

Legendary game designer Richard Garriott is moving forward with plans for a trip to the International Space Station in October 2008. Garriott is teaming up with Space Adventures and ExtremoZyme to make the flight happen.

Space Adventures has designed a series of missions to "increase commercial involvement in manned space missions,"--in other words, letting ordinary folks into space for the right amount of cash.

ExtremoZyme is a biotechnology co-founded by Garriott's dad, Owen, who just happens to have been an astronaut in his day. Richard plans on conducting protein crystallization experiments for the company while he's floating around in space:

I am dedicating my spaceflight to science. It is my goal to devote a significant amount of my time aboard the space station to science, engineering and educational projects.  I understand the necessity for conducting research in extreme environments whether it is collecting microorganisms from deep sea hydrothermal vents to carrying out experiments in the continuous micro-gravity of Earth orbit. We need to be adventurous in mind and simulate our intellects to answer today's most daunting scientific questions and to invent tomorrow's technological marvels.

Here's hoping they need a game journalist or two to cover the trip. Click here to keep up to date on the mission's progress.

You may be thinking we need another WWII game like we need another reality show about a newly-married celebrity couple, but wait! Operation Darkness for the 360 is a WWII strategy/RPG game with magic, dragons, Nazi soldiers who look oddly like they stepped out of Killzone, and a hot chick with a rifle. There's also a guy who appears to change into a werewolf, and a skeleton getting crushed by a tank.  This has been your dose of "Hwa?" for the day.

We're quietly excited about PS3 title  Folklore here at Game|Life, which is why we're sad our non-European status excludes us from the Create a Folk contest.

Between now and October 22nd, residents of Europe are invited to submit their designs for bizarre and otherworldly creatures to add to the ranks of the Folks, the magical creatures you encounter in the game.

The winning beastie will be turned into a real Folk, available for download from the PlayStation store. Keep in mind, you not only have to design the look of the creature, but also give it a name, provide a description, and explain the unique attack that the player can gain from it. Head here for more info.

For those of you still reading even though it's a Friday evening right before Labor Day weekend, we are proud to announce that it is Mailbag Time here at Game|Life.

In which we read from letters that actual readers like you have sent to me or, in the case of our final letter, to Wired about me. Entertainment is sure to follow. But first.

Your colors are like my dreams: red, gold and green

Subject: Green discs are not actually colored green

'Going gold' is still a completely valid term - MS uses 'red' and
'green' to denote a certification disc's copy protection status. None
of the colors are actually real, meaning that any of the discs just
look like DVDs upon visual inspection.

thanks,
matthew

I stand corrected. It's still all kind of silly.

Continue reading "Rants and Raves: Game|Life Reads From Your Letters" »

After pages detailing the US releases for Wii games titled Kiki Kai World and The Monkey King: The Legend Begins appeared on Amazon today, we contacted publisher UFO Entertainment to see if we couldn't find out the whole story.

As it turns out, Kiki Kai World is not the Kiki KaiKai (Pocky and Rocky) sequel that was announced and cancelled.  However, it is by the same developer, is "very similar" to the cancelled game, and is more of a "spiritual successor," says UFO.

"To make a long story short, Taito, who is now owned by Square [Enix], had some issues with us and we had to let the title go," said a company spokesperson.

The new game will be released in the US on both the PlayStation 2 and Wii. The PS2 version is currently scheduled for a December release, with the Wii version arriving early next year. The game will also be released on both platforms in Japan.

UFO also confirmed that The Monkey King is indeed the US title of Starfish's upcoming Wii game Shin Chuuka Taisen.

Eschewing his usual video game reviews, Ben "Yahtzee" "that guy who makes the funny videos" Croshaw gives us a summary of the console wars in this episode of Zero Punctuation. Funny, but I don't think anyone can outdo Nerdshoe for pure accuracy, on this particular topic.

Zero Punctuation: Console Rundown [Escapist]

The PlayStation 3 entry in the LocoRoco series will be available on September 21 in Japan, but nobody quite knows what it is, yet. Is it a game? An interactive screensaver? MTV News' Stephen Totilo says that he's possibly the first journalist to get hands-on with the game, and it's... undefined. It's something. The Sony reps demoing the game weren't even sure.

There was a sign in our level indicating the number of LocoRocos we had to awaken before moving to the next stage. We had to find that many and get them through the gate. ... The Sony reps and I were able to zoom out and look at the overall game map. A few other areas were unlocked. We could go into them and mess around, but without our army of LocoRocos, we couldn’t make much happen.

Mixed Motions [Multiplayer Blog]

UPDATE: UFO Entertainment gives Wired News the full details on this game.

We can be reasonably sure at this point that UFO Entertainment will be releasing Kiki Kai World, a new entry in the long-forgotten Pocky & Rocky series, for Wii. The "rumor" part is that it'll come on December 18.

The news comes courtesy of a fully-detailed Amazon page for the game, with a feature list, box art, and release date, which could very well be a placeholder.

Occam's razor would say that this is the same Pocky & Rocky revival that was originally shown off for PS2, then cancelled. UFO is also apparently releasing
another 2D shooter, called Monkey King, for Wii on November 1.

Kiki Kai World [Amazon]

This news hit the Japanese magazines this week, but Capcom just put out the official press release: they're teaming with developer Camelot, creators of the acclaimed Mario Golf and Mario Tennis games, for a new Wii golf game titled We Love Golf!

Capcom sees We Love Golf as part of the company's continued efforts to win over both Wii fans and sports fans:

With the release of "WE LOVE GOLF!" as well as the autumn release of the new racing game "MotoGP 07", Capcom will expand from its core action / adventure games and make fresh entries into the sports game genre ...  As we continue to expand our current Wii library, we aim to continue increasing the number of satisfied Capcom game players.

Capcom also announced that Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition has shipped 750,000 copies worldwide.

Capcom enters the sports game arena [Capcom.co.jp]

I guess we really are going to have all these announcements of games "going gold", again? Even though Xbox 360 master discs are actually green?

Today, Midway's Stranglehold and Koei's Fatal Inertia were sent off to manufacturing. Well, only the Xbox 360 version of Stranglehold, anyway. The PlayStation 3 version won't be out until late September. Meanwhile, the PS3 version of Fatal Inertia is still MIA.

Both games are out next week, Fatal Inertia on the 11th and Stranglehold on the 14th.

Ever wonder what it's like when Jack Thompson and Take-Two email each other? Thompson apparently sent over one of these back-and-forths to GamePolitics, who printed it this morning. In response to Thompson's continued allegations that Rockstar's age verification process for its online store is in violation of federal standards, a Take-Two VP says:

Jack, give it a break. I am happy to answer your questions and correct any misapprehensions that you have but I will not engage in this type of discussion with you. I am not a liar, I didn’t threaten you, and I wont get roped into this type of dialogue. Don’t bother writing back because I will not answer any further communications along these lines.

Take Two Warns Jack Thompson Over Manhunt 2 [GamePolitics]

Civilization IV and Spore designer Soren Johnson, in his blog, has a fun read: a list of the eight biggest mistakes that game designers tend to make.

The temptation to pile extra units and buildings and whatnot onto to an already complete design is strong. Indeed, I have seen many people describe games as simply a collection of stuff ("18 Weapons! 68 Monsters! 29 Levels!") Needless to say, this is a wrong-headed approach. A game design is a collection of interesting decisions, as Sid would say, and the "stuff" in the game is there not to fill space but to let you execute decisions. Games can provide too few options for the player but - more commonly - games provide too many.

8 Things Not To Do (Part 1, Part 2) [via GameSetWatch]

GameTrailers has the official trailer for the next Professor Layton game. Seems as if, with the amazing success of the first, they're pouring more money into this one. A theme song! Lots and lots of animation! We don't see very many puzzles, this time, but I'm still excited.

November 29. Taste the anticipation.

Want to know just how close we were to getting actual, non-frustrating, analog stick control in Lair? All you have to do is plug any USB control pad that doesn't have Sixaxis motion control capability into the PlayStation 3, and Lair will use the analog sticks. Or, in my case, the D-pad off of this old knockoff Sega Saturn USB pad I had lying around.

I don't want to suggest that somehow the control magically becomes perfect. It doesn't. But the difference is palpable. I pulled up that infamous first bridge level, and suddenly I was actually able to make the dragon go where he ought to. I can't imagine why this functionality isn't an option. I don't know if it's possible to play through the entire game like this. Certainly some key button features, like lock-on and rage mode, weren't mapped to the buttons on my pad.

I wonder why exactly this was left in the code. Did they not think that someone would plug in a USB pad, just to see what happened? Had this functionality actually been standardized in Lair, I doubt that people would have so many issues. It's still got massive flaws but this didn't have to be one of them.

(thanks, GAF!)

If you have a Wii and live in Japan, you'll be overwhelmed with riches starting next week. Nintendo is releasing nineteen (!) games on Virtual Console in the East during the month of September, including the long-awaited debut of three Neo Geo titles.

Highlights across the board include Moero!! Pro Yakyuu (Bases Loaded), Super Metroid, Landstalker, and of course Magician Lord, Fatal Fury, and World Heroes, which will run 900 points each -- a bit expensive, but in line with the large size of the cartridges compared to SNES or Mega Drive.

Sin and Punishment, a fantastic Japan-only Nintendo 64 shooter from Treasure, is also on tap for Japan. Hopefully this will come to the US for the first time ever.

The full list of games, plus the TurboGrafx lineup for the US, is below.

Continue reading "Neo Geo, 19 Games: September Is Month Of Plenty For Japan Virtual Console" »

Two Hungarian researchers at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics have discovered that your skin gives away your next gaming move seconds before you actually make it.

Laszlo Laufer and Bottyan Nemeth had volunteers play a game called YetiSports JungleSwing that involves controlling a swinging Yeti as he moves through a tree and calls for some tricky timing as he leaps from branch to branch. You can try it out for yourself here.

As players swung their yeti, they were hooked up to equipment that measured their heart rate, skin conductance, and the electrical activity of their brains. Laufer and Nemeth discovered that skin conductance predicted  players were going to jump 2 seconds before they actually did. Laufer thinks the discovery could be used to design videogames that adapt to players' movements, perhaps slowing down right before a jump to throw off your timing.

While I'm sure that's possible, who'd want to play a game that frustrating?

Photo courtesy of New Scientist.

Skin signals betray a gamer's moves [New Scientist]

Next Tuesday is all about accessorizing your 360, with the release of the Xbox 360 Messenger Kit and a trio of Halo 3 goodies.

The Messenger Kit features a 360 headset and the Chatpad, which is backlit (good for gaming in the wee hours) and attaches easily to your controller. It'll cost you $30, which seems about right.

If you're all about the Halo, you can opt to pick up the limited edition Spartan green and gold wireless headset for $60, or go for one of the two  limited edition wireless controllers instead. Designed by Todd McFarlane, one sports a Covenant Brute theme, and the other...go on, guess. If you said "Master Chief," you deserve a cookie. The controllers are $60 each, and come with a Master Chief figurine, also designed by McFarlane.

Personally, I think the Spartan headset leans towards the fugly side,  but the Master Chief controller is kind of cool.

Continue reading "Xbox 360 Chat Pad, Halo Controllers Out Next Week" »

According to IGN,  filming on the Kane & Lynch movie is scheduled to begin as early as this Fall. Studio Lionsgate is apparently "thrilled" with the script by Kyle Ward. IGN figures that Jieho Lee, whose K&L script reportedly lost out to Ward's, might end up directing.

Unlike most videogame flicks, this one has apparently attracted the attention of an "A-list star," though IGN wasn't allowed to say who. They didn't even give us a hint, like "rhymes with Fristian Sail." (That's just wishful thinking, really, folks. Having Equilibrium flashbacks.)

Here's how IGN sums up the plot:

The story will parallel that of the Eidos game, which involves a mercenary named Kane and a "medicated psychopath" called Lynch. The two encounter one another while en route to death row, and together they decide to embark on a quest for revenge against Kane's former employers, one of those mysterious and covert organization types.

Kane & Lynch Scoop! [IGN]

According to GameSpot, Ubisoft has confirmed that the only version of Haze currently in development is for the PS3.

Haze was originally announced as coming out for the PC, 360, and PS3, but Ubisoft later said that the PS3 had become the "lead platform" for the game. It now looks as though the PC and 360 versions are completely out of the picture: Haze's various web sites (developer Free Radical's, publisher Ubisoft's and the game's official site) all list the game as being PS3-only.

According to an Ubisoft spokesperson, "The official statement on PC and Xbox 360 is that these platforms are not confirmed."

Haze PC and 360 drop off the map [GameSpot]

Spike TV's Murder gives ordinary folks the chance to solve real-life murders, presenting them with accurate crime scene recreations, evidence, and videos of suspect interrogations. This week's episode featured the stabbing death of a 14-year-old girl in her bedroom. Her older brother was one of the suspects, and when the would-be detectives examined his room, they found a number of violent comic books and videogames.

Three of the six investigators were convinced that these belongings indicated that the boy had committed the crime, stabbing his sister 11 times. One investigating team's theory was that the brother, whipped into a rage by a night of playing violent games, walked across the hall and killed his sister because he was jealous of her popularity. A member of the other team called the games "evil," and thought her teammates were "insane" for suggesting that watching something with violent content could be entertaining.

Continue reading "Crime-Solving TV Show Highlights Public Reaction to Violent Videogames" »

Concerned that Nintendo's apparent aversion to third-party online play wouldn't mesh well with Guitar Hero III's online multiplayer, Bits, Bytes, Pixels & Sprites got in touch with Red Octane just to make sure everything was a-ok with the Wii version. It wasn't:

[W]e’re working closely with Nintendo for an online solution, though at the moment we’re unable to confirm the status of the online multi-player.

The same apparently holds true for downloadable content. Previous versions of Guitar Hero have gotten along just fine without DLC or online play, but given the choice, who would want to go with the crippled version?

Guitar Hero III May Be Online, but Will It Be "Nintendo" Online? [Thebbps.com]

Here's a quick look at how My Word Coach for the Wii connects with the DS for some of its gameplay options. In this minigame, you use the DS touchpad to draw the letter that completes the word on screen.
If you'd like to take a look at one of the multiplayer games, click here. It's easy to see how My Word Coach could be helpful or educational, but does it actually look fun?

We got a chance to check out TimeShift at E3 this year and were fairly intrigued; now it's your turn to see what you think of time-dilating shooterific action.

The demo that's now on the Xbox Live Marketplace is the very same one I got to see back in July, and it gives you plenty of opportunity to muck about with the game's time-controlling mechanics as you give your enemies a fatal case of lead poisoning.

Here's a tip: try shooting a bad guy in the knee, then watching him get up and walk. Also, stopping time turns the surface of water into a solid, letting you walk on it.

The thing about commercial games is that, in the end, they want you to win. The developers spent a lot of time creating a world for you, and people aren't generally happy to spend sixty bucks on something only to be frustrated in their attempts to enjoy it all. Individuals who put games up on the Web have no such concerns, though. They're happy to destroy your sanity and sap your patience. If you like a good struggle with a vicious puzzle, check out this forty-question quiz.

Quest [Official Site]

There was some hopeful speculation yesterday that a job posting at Codemasters indicated that the company was working on a PS3 port of Overlord, but the company has flatly KO'd the notion.

A Codemasters spokesperson told Eurogamer "We are not porting Overlord to PS3," which doesn't leave a whole lot of wiggle room for speculation.

It seems the person who gets the advertised job "Porting X360/PC code base to PS3" will be working on something completely different. Pity, really. The more people playing Overlord, the better.

Codies not doing Overlord PS3 [Eurogamer]

Bluepoint Games is giving Blast Factor such a makeover that you'll hardly recognize it when it's done. Blast Factor: Advanced Research
adds seven new specimens, eleven new types of enemy, two new bosses, new music, lighting, and sound effects to the original game, then throws in a practice mode and monthly online high score tables just for kicks.

A demo will be on the Playstation Store soon, so you can check out all the new bells and whistles at your leisure.

Blast Factor: Advanced Research Coming Soon! [Playstation Blog]

Nintendo's senior vice president of marketing George Harrison has announced his "early retirement" to Nintendo of America employees via a company-wide voice mail message, GameDaily reports today.

This unconfirmed news follows in the wake of revelations that Nintendo is searching for a vice president of corporate affairs and a director of communications, presumably to replace Perrin Kaplan and Beth Llewelyn.

If true, these stories would mean the departure of Nintendo's entire top marketing team when the company relocates its sales and marketing division to Redwood City, CA from Seattle later this year.

Source: George Harrison Has Announced His Retirement [GameDaily BIZ]

If you're headed off to BlizzCon this weekend, or if you'd just like to pretend that you are, Blizzard has posted the full schedule of events for its two-day fan festival in Anaheim.

You'll be able to play Starcraft II for twelve hours a day, if you want, or go to panels that cover all manner of topics related to World of Warcraft and Blizzard's other titles.

BlizzCon Schedule [via Kotaku]

According to The Battle Creek Enquirer's Eric Greene, the broadcast of video game tournaments on television is a sign of the apocalypse, or at the very least the decline of American civilization:

I envision two sweaty-palmed, pimple-faced 14-year-olds casting virtual spells on each other in the "World of Warcraft," and millions of people watching at home, ignoring all familial, spiritual and hygienic needs as they await the outcome of the make-believe contest. And with that, we blissful and carefree Americans may have sunk below the point of no return.

Greene seems to think that, for some reason, showing pro gaming on TV is a sign that we're "losing the war for such things as attention span, conversation, artistic expression and outdoor activity." Watching a Detroit Pistons game, something Greene enjoys, does not have the same negative impact on society for some reason.

Continue reading "Newspaper Editor Calls Pro Gaming Broadcast "Downright Stupid"" »

As promised, Bungie's Luke Smith has revealed the details of Halo 3's surprising new mode: a four-player cooperative online adventure that lets you and up to three buddies take on the game's Campaign mode as a group. Calling the mode "some of our greatest ever Halo experiences," Smith gave the following examples of how the cooperative gameplay can affect the game:

Acting as a team is a fantastic new twist to the Campaign gameplay – something that works as well on foot, in close confines as it does on the battlefield, with large scale vehicle mayhem. Scared of Jackal snipers? Send out a scout to see what dangers lie ahead. Terrified of an open field? Flank your enemies and swipe their rides.

Continue reading "Halo 3's Four-Player Cooperative Mode: The Details" »

Midway senior VP of marketing Steve Allison speaks to Newsweek's N'Gai Croal about the company's efforts to partner with Hollywood to create not just your typical movie licenses, but partially original IP that taps into the success of films -- like Stranglehold. He also speaks about the difficulties inherent in making good game movies:

One of the reasons the Halo movie deal is so difficult for any studio to really get behind is the amount of control a third party, non-studio entity had over the project. It feels great to get those deal points, but at the end of the day, not too many people at videogame publishers know how to make a movie, and the interaction becomes super frustrating to the studios and it can kill a project.

The Art Of The Deal [Level Up]

The winners of the Game Critics Awards have been announced, and Rock Band is the winningest game of them all. Harmonix's instrumental collaborative musical adventure took home the Best In Show award as well as Best Hardware/Peripheral and Best Social/Casual/Puzzle.

The game's distributor Electronic Arts took the most awards of any publisher, with six total. Among platforms, Xbox 360 games garnered the most awards with eleven total.

2007 Winners [Game Critics Awards]

The first thing you need to know about this upcoming PC game is that, thankfully, Project Offset is just a working title. The next thing you need to know is that this video was supposedly for internal use only and that Offset's website actually asks that folks not post it. (We were nice and asked first--they said they wouldn't be mad if we went ahead and shared it with you lot.) Looks pretty darn good for something they supposedly didn't want folks to see, don't you think?

Choosing a urinal in a men's room may seem, to the untrained outside observer, to be simply a matter of random chance. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The procedure is in fact subject to a set of black-and-white, unbending rules. The Urinal Game tests your knowledge of gentlemanly pee etiquette. Better to get these questions wrong now than in the field.

The Urinal Game [GameScene]

CMP has decided to pull the plug on PC Game On, a consumer-facing PC games event. Time and planning constraints doomed the event, which was set to take place September 8-9 at the Austin Convention Center, directly following the Austin Developers Conference. 

CMP issued a statement thanking the folks who supported the the event, which at least shows that they have manners.

At a press conference in Amsterdam, Bungie confirmed that Halo 3 will feature an online cooperative mode for two to four players. Further details are unclear: does this mean you can play through the single-player campaign as a team of four, or is it a discrete game mode? Is there drop-in, drop-out? Etc.

Bungie's Luke Smith confirmed the news (originally reported in a language that is not English) on NeoGAF, and said details will hit Bungie's official site later today.

[via Joystiq]

By day, you’re an ordinary high school student; by night, the monster-fighting savior of the human race. Thus is the general set up of Persona 3 (PS2), the latest entry in the Shin Megami Tensei series, which takes the franchise’s trademark weirdness and balances it beautifully with ordinary day-to-day teenage activities like studying for exams and shopping at the mall.

Continue reading "Review: Persona 3 is Beautifully Bizarre" »

Looks like the Xbox 360 price drop is all but confirmed, now, with the addition of this Circuit City ad scan. But check it out: while the Core and Elite are still around, their prices aren't dropping on par with the Premium System. Most interestingly, the price of the Core is apparently only being lowered by $20.

The Core wasn't a great deal to begin with, and now it's even worse. Don't buy this! For any reason!

Betrayalton [NeoGAF]

This year's Tokyo Game Show is going to be positively gargantuan, with 168 exhibitors signed up so far. Nintendo has decided not to attend, but Sony and Microsoft will be there, along with Sega, Capcom, Square Enix, Konami, Tecmo, and Namco Bandai.

The four-day event (only three days in previous years) is expected to attract nearly 200,000 attendees this September. The first two days are for industry pros only, but the last two days are open to the public. This year's theme is  "Link up, Reach out, To the world," which is not nearly as cool as the luau theme that we suggested.

According to a David Tennant web site   (he's the new doc, dontcha know), an advert for a Dr. Who video game, to be released at Christmas, appears in the new Doctor Who Top Trumps card pack. As the site puts it, "It is thought it will be available on PC, PS2, DS and Mobile," though we don't know why they think that.

I may pass out. I've been a fan of the Doc since I was in grade school, and was thrilled to see that the new version on the Beeb stayed faithful to the spirit of the show without being hokey or low-grade. Please, please, please don't let this suck. Also, make K-9 an unlockable character. Or something. Just make sure he's in there.

Doctor Who Video Game Out for Christmas [David-Tennant.com, via Worth Playing]

The boy wizard has been toppled from the top of the UK sales charts by a bunch of hyper-adorable pocket monsters. Pokemon Diamond owns the top slot, while Pearl trails behind at number 3, with the Transformers wedging themselves firmly in between.

The nosedive of the week belongs to Rainbow Six: Vegas, which fell ten spots to number 18. Besides the Pokemans, other newcomers to the chart include Rubgy 08 (12), Transformers: the Game- Autobot (19), and Wario Ware: Smooth Moves (20). The entire chart follows.

Continue reading "Harry Potter Bested by Pokemon on UK Charts" »

Bizarre Creations has been forced to change Project Gotham Racing 4's lighting options due to the size limitations of a DVD. Here's how Bizarre's Ben explained it in this thread on the official forum:

You won't see different times of day per city because this involves recreating all the textures again (one for day and one for night). Whilst this wasn't a problem for our dev team, it was a problem fitting all this data onto a single DVD. So we've worked around the problem by providing different lighting models per city. For example, Macau is always in the daytime, but if you play it during a storm everything looks darker and more foreboding. If you play during a blizzard then things are slightly tinged blue and everything seems more frozen. Of course, playing this track in sunshine will make everything appear bright and yellowy.

It sounds like, given the options available to them, Bizarre made the right choice, but it's still a bit of a drag. Not drag enough to make it worthwhile for them to drop something else (like, say, the motorcycles or weather conditions) to free up the space for the added textures, but a drag just the same. PS3 fans, now would be an appropriate time to start extolling the virtues of Blu-ray.

About the time of the track [Bizarre Creations Forums]

Crysis could, maybe, someday be on the 360 and PS3, or so said Crytek's Cevat Yerli to PC Gamer (UK). Don't hold your breath, though. While Yerli acknowledges that the game could run on a console, there are no plans as of yet to put it there:

It requires optimisation, that's what we've always communicated. What you would not do is make Crysis on PS3, 360 and PC for a single shipping date, because we would lose the quality focus. So I say, 'First PC version, then we'll see what happens'.

Yerli went on to say that Crytek wouldn't put Crysis on a platform unless it could make it the "number one game there." Like the man says, first PC version, then we'll see what happens.

Crytek: "Crysis could be on the 360 or PS3" [CVG]

There are many Flash games in which you shoot, smack, or otherwise hit various objects as they are presented to you. By and large, however, these games provide a crosshairs or some other method of aiming at your enemies and/or victims. No such luck here. You have to smash plates by clicking on them, without the benefit of knowing exactly where you're aiming. One little change, and it's a whole different game.

Cursor Invisible [Noob.us]

The guys at Hudson are crazy. That's the only explanation I can come up with for this mock making-of video that they produced for their upcoming Xbox Live title Bomberman Live. We saw this video at their recent Bomberman event, and encouraged them to show it to the public, which in retrospect might seem like a bad idea tomorrow when they all get fired for gross incompetence. I want to see every game publisher do this.

Bomberman Live [GameTrailers]

Nintendo has announced the games that will be hitting Japan's Virtual Console in the month of July, and there are some interesting things happening, including a first-party Nintendo game that only a few Japanese players ever got their hands on.

On Nintendo 64, Paper Mario has indeed been bumped back to July, where it joins Wave Race 64 (right). Notable for being the first post-launch Nintendo 64 title, Wave Race was actually excellent and worth the download. And what else needs to be said about Paper Mario?

Continue reading "Virtual Consolation Prize: Wave Race And Obscure Goodies For July" »

As part of their efforts to catalogue detailed histories of the games in Stanford University's newly-chosen "canon", Gamasutra presents a six-page, well-written history of the seminal text adventure Zork that explores not only the development of the series but its impact on the medium.

Still not enough to make me actually want to play a text adventure, but hey.

The History of Zork [Gamasutra]

I think Parish and I were talking about this on the season finale of Retronauts: how I've put in way more hours actually listening to the Rockman Dash soundtrack than playing the game itself, which is called Mega Man Legends in the US.

The stars of the show are the opening and ending vocal themes, "Another Sun" and "Your Wind Is Blowing," performed by Reika Morishita.　I think these were actually cut out of the US release, though.

Continue reading "Today's Game Soundtrack: Rockman Dash OST" »

The pervasive stereotype of MMO guild leaders goes something like this: white, male, late teen, overzealous, with a tendency to scream over VOIP to the point of voice cracking. Would it disturb you to know that these guys' methodologies are being intently studied by people attempting to zero in on the future of management? Well, this is precisely the focus of a joint study between Palo Alto software company Seriousity, IBM, Standford University, and MIT.

Seriousity's flagship product, Attent, draws heavily from the collaborative models that MMOs have been designed around for years. A report published today by Red Herring points out that, as such, "[t]he research could be considered self-serving for Seriosity."

Continue reading "MMOs and the Future of Management" »

The crew over at 1up took the Grand Theft Auto IV trailer that hit yesterday and did a video analysis of it, above. They hit all of the little bits that you might have missed on first viewing, like rear-view mirrors, building signs, ads in the background, and other details that give clues to the gameplay and the setting.

If you want to check out the trailer itself, it's embedded after the jump.

Continue reading "Video: GTA IV Trailer, Analyzed" »

Preorder the adorable Dewy's Adventure at GameStop and get a free plush Dewy doll. It'll go really well next to your Elebits plush things that you got when you preordered Konami's last Wii game, because they look like they were made out of the same materials.

Do you think they recycled the used Elebits? That would be kind of sad, yet in keeping with the game's message of conservation, so.

Plush Dewy Preorder [Siliconera]

Capcom CEO Kenzo Tsujimoto told shareholders this week that while the Osaka-based game publisher is not currently considering any mergers with or acquisitions of Japanese companies, the opposite holds true for Western outfits.

[M]utual shareholding in, business partnerships with, or acquisition of companies that create content popular around the world is something Capcom is actively pursuing.

This year, Capcom has asserted a renewed focus on Western game development, acquiring the MotoGP and Harvey Birdman licenses and doing some hiring.

Capcom and overseas acquisitions [GamesIndustry.biz]

This just in: bad film director Uwe Boll says that his upcoming movie-of-the-game Postal is "one of the funniest and the most important films of the last decade".

At the film market in Cannes POSTAL got STANDING OVATIONS. No other film has ever been applauded there since it’s all business people who attend the screenings. It’s one of the best films of all time!

I'm actually a fan of self-important hyperbole. Check it out: Game|Life is one of the best blogs of all time. That felt so good.

Uwe Boll on Postal [Bollbashers, via 1up]

Ted Price, of Sony-exclusive studio Insomniac, tells GameDaily that PlayStation 3 has become a scapegoat:

I think the PS3 has become the whipping boy for the press, quite honestly. I think everyone just wants to fill it full of arrows because Sony's had some pretty amazing success over the years. And it's easy to overlook that it's been, I think, the fastest selling PlayStation console. I think it's human nature to want to take down the guy on top[.]

Well, somebody's got to take the beating, and Nintendo's and Microsoft's behinds were pretty red already, so...

Ted Price: PS3 Has Become "Whipping Boy" For The Press [GameDaily]

Yes, this is old, but we here at Game|Life are passionate about spreading the word about safe sex, and apparently, in this alternate reality version of my childhood, so was Nintendo. Honestly, the actual sex ed videos we watched in eighth grade weren't any less silly than this.

Yes, this is another one of those blog posts where people get to comment on the low, low state of Wired these days and how non-newsworthy this is. If you'd like a more thorough explanation of why we do this, it's after the jump. If you just want lulz, they are above.

Continue reading "The Lost Nintendo Sex Ed Tape, and Why We're Linking It" »

Playboy has spoken: gaming is good for your health. A sidebar in the July issue runs down various ways in which gaming might improve your well-being, including sharpened visual acuity, improved spatial reasoning, and weight loss.

They are, of course, correct. After just one week of gaming, my visual acuity increased to the point that I realized Playboy was full of pictures of naked women. Who knew?

I Only Read It for the Articles, I Swear [The Wiicast]

The guys at Ninja Theory say that their upcoming first-party PlayStation 3 adventure Heavenly Sword is "95% done". But, they caution:

Here's a secret: whenever you hear a developer say "We're 95% done. Nearly there folks!", they'll normally follow it up with something along the lines of "The last 5% is the difference between a good game and a great game and that means lots of testing, tweaking and polishing to make the final experience for the player so much better than the sum of its parts" or something like that.

So, while this is true, they also mean, "We have loads of bugs and we're fixing them at the speed of light... Sometime soon QA is going to stop finding new bugs and we’ll be done!"

Welcome to Ninja Theory! [IGN Blogs]

Think of it as Tetris on Valium: slide blocks around to fill the space at the bottom of the screen. Part of the challenge is to figure out how the blocks fit together, and the other part is moving them around each other so you can get them in place. Simple, silent, but quite a bit of fun.

Phit [Jeff Wofford.com]

S.E. Kramer's recent column published in Scifi.com mirrors a lot of what Second Life's detractors have been saying for a long time: that the virtual world isn't accessible enough to achieve mainstream success. The world's "newbie island," where new users initially spawn, and are taught the basics of avatar-customization and navigation, is more cumbersome than inviting, he feels:

I'd bet that a lot of potential Second Life citizens never make it off of that first island.

Continue reading "Sci Fi Tech Opines: Second Life too Hard for the Mainstream" »

This trailer for Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles returns to the mansion where all the poor voice acting, horrible camera angles, and zombie killing fun started. *sniff* Meemmmoorieeeeesssss....

Looks fairly awesome, especially that whopping great snake flailing around. Count me in.

Wired has a fascinating--and disturbing--story up about Linux visionary and murder suspect Hans Reiser. Reiser is accused of murdering his wife, Nina, with whom he was engaged in a bitter divorce and custody battle. One of the pivotal elements in the case was Reiser's attitude towards gaming, especially in relation to the couple's young son, Rory:

Reiser claims that Nina may be consulting with "memory creation specialists" in order to implant memories in Rory's mind. He insists that he never told Rory to hide the fact that they play Battlefield Vietnam together and is convinced that the specialist created this memory. "I am just lucky these memories only involve a computer game so far," Reiser writes to the court. "I don't want to find out that my child remembers being satanically sacrificed by me in a past life."

Continue reading "Hans Reiser: Linux Visionary, Murder Suspect, Gamer" »

Put on the spandex and bust out the Aqua Net--the song list for Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s has been finalized. Just remember, if you're playing "Seventeen," you have to do the ballet turns just like Kip Winger, or it doesn't count. Also, "Radar Love" should only ever be done by Golden Earring. It's the truth.

The newly announced titles are here, the rest of the list is after the jump.

Caught in a Mosh (Anthrax)
Balls to the Wall (Accept)
Electric Eye (Judas Priest)
Los Angeles (X)
Police Truck (Dead Kennedys)
We Got the Beat (Go Go's)
(I Think I'm) Turning Japanese (Vapors)
Seventeen (Winger)
Because, it's Midnite (by Limozeen)

Continue reading "Final Song List for Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s" »

It seems that The Darkness is going to have to go through a bit of a facelift before it's released in Germany. First and foremost, all Nazi symbolism must be removed from the game--that's pretty standard for any games released in Germany. They're, uh, kinda sensitive about that part of their history, y'see.

Other changes include the removal of four Darkling kill methods, and substituting a soul-sucking green mist for the heart-ripping-out animation. Sigh...sucking out souls  is cool, and all, but it's just not the same.

The Darkness: Uncut Version in Deutschland verboten [areagames.de, via Kotaku]

Dona C. Bailey, co-creator of the Atari classic Centipede, will keynote the Women In Games International conference "She's Got Game" in Austin this September.

Bailey will discuss "where games have been, where they are now, and in which direction she'd like to see them develop," said a statement released by WIGI today. Bailey currently works at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock.

First Ubisoft, now Activision. in a conference call today, Activision CEO Robert Kotick said that while the publisher's stance on GameCube was "non-strategic," it is quite enthusiastic about the Wii development situation:

For a few generations, Nintendo software was better than third-party software. When you look at where we are today…we think we’re actually in the best position and probably even in a better position than the first-party to leverage our development dollars ... We’re reinvesting against the Nintendo platform in a way that in the last cycle we really did not.

Kotick specifies that the company's Guitar Hero franchise will be a great fit for Wii.

Activision Addresses Wii Third-Party Debate [Next-Gen]

Fortune magazine has a really interesting and in-depth cover story on the Wii in this issue, in which the writer does some fascinating math. Dividing Nintendo's $8.26 billion in revenue by its 3,400 employees, each employee generated $2.5 million.

Comparing this to Microsoft ($624,000) and Google ($994,000), the point is clear.

You should read the piece, if you haven't already.

Wii Wii Rock You [Fortune, via Game Daily]

Doki-Doki Majo Shinpan, the upcoming Nintendo DS game where you have to poke and prod at teenage girls with the touch screen in order to find out if they are witches, just upped the ante by adding a bonus stage with a teenage boy.

"Huh? Am I a witch? No way... I mean, look, I'm a boy..."

I'm not sure what else SNK could really do to make this the Creepiest Game Ever. I think they've just won that contest hands-down. Hopefully I'll have this in time to take it to E3 and pitch it around to American publishers, just to see what happens.

Doki Doki kicks it up a notch [Insert Credit]
 

In an effort to better understand bullying through its all-pervasive virtual manifestation--i.e., griefing--scholars from various departments of the University of Nottingham conducted a focus group on the topic in Second Life. As per Dr. Thomas Chesney, who lead the study, its purpose was to determine the how and why griefing occurs, and what carryover it can have on the victims' real lives.

Continue reading "University of Nottingham Studies Second Life Griefing" »

Perpetual Entertainment has opened up beta applications for its premier MMO Gods & Heroes. From the looks of it, the game is far from "WoW in Rome"; players will be able to control entire squads of henchmen in addition to their own characters, and the combat system looks much more choreographed than anything I've ever seen before.

If you're interested in testing your legions against the worst that ancient myth can throw at you, put your name in the hat: http://community.godsandheroes.com/betasignup/. Apparently, you get extra props if you speak French, German, or Italian.

Sony's latest firmware update for PlayStation Portable includes the long-awaited Remote Play feature, which allows users to access video, music, and photos stored on the PlayStation 3 from any wireless internet connection with a PSP.

The update, version 3.50, also includes an index of different RSS feeds that can be accessed directly from the system's main menu.

Continue reading "Access Your PS3 Wirelessly Through PSP" »

In today's episode of your favorite podcast, Retronauts, we salute the Mega Manniversary by talking about every game the Blue Bomber has ever starred in. Uh, every one that we've played, anyway, which apparently is only the first three plus Mega Man Legends 2.

I attempt to make up for this utter lack of knowledge about the source material by hijacking the podcast and making it about Actraiser. Which I think is totally acceptable in any situation. Example:

Priest: If anyone has any reason why these two should not be wed, speak now or forever hold your peace.

(I stand up)

Crowd: GASP

Me: It's not that; I just need to say that Actraiser has an awesome soundtrack.

(Slow clap)

Retronauts Episode 26 [1up]

Blizzard vice president Rob Pardo tells MSNBC that the highly anticipated StarCraft II will not ship this year:

The only thing I can give you [that’s] concrete is it’s not going to be this year. Some people were hoping, because of how advanced the game looks, that we’d have it out by Christmas, but that’s definitely not happening.

Not that any serious person really thought that it would, but just so GameStop doesn't sucker you into preordering early.

Can Blizzard Top Itself With StarCraft II? [MSNBC, via Kotaku]

There's the first official image from Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Purple Monkey Dishwasher, coming this year to Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. You might notice that it's just a sprite. According to Capcom product marketing specialist Brian Dunn, who posted this image to the company's message boards, this is what the game will look like "if you paused the game and took out the background."

Okay.

First Look: SSF2THDRWTFLOL [Capcom BBS]

As of today, Turner has added a new, potentially very interesting, aspect to its GameTap online games-on-demand service by offering a select group of games for free play.

For the next little while, games like Tomb Raider Legend, Bubble Bobble, and Metal Slug will be playable by all and sundry. Some will only require the smaller GameTap Lite player, rather than the full GameTap client.

Continue reading "GameTap Unleashes Free Ad-Supported Games" »

The Multiverse Network, a Mountain View, CA company headed by web pioneer Bill Turpin, has raised over $4M USD in its first round of funding. The company is attempting to create both a toolkit that will enable developers to efficiently crank out MMOGs and virtual worlds, and a branded network that will help them monetize their creations. According to the press release, the company will use the funding to staff up its operation, in order to complete version 1.0 of its technology platform, which is expected to release late this year, or early '08.

Multiverse states that over 10,000 developers have signed up to utilizes its technology, and that 150 teams are working on projects with what's already available.

Multiverse raises $4M for virtual world offering [VentureBeat]

Speaking to Eurogamer, Pandemic Studios' Scott Warner declared his enthusiasm for a handheld version of Mercenaries:

At the moment we're only concentrating on the versions of  [Mercenaries 2] we've announced, but I'd love for us to work on a handheld version of Mercs! Anything's possible!

Portable Mercenaries? Yes, thank you. It will be interesting to see how well Mercenaries 2: World in Flames gets squeezed into the PS2. If Pandemic pulls that off, then perhaps a decent  portable version--albeit a significantly smaller one--wouldn't have to be wishful thinking.

Mercs 2 handheld bound? [Eurogamer]

If you were expecting Guitar Hero 3 to look significantly different than its predecessors, prepare to be let down. It's pretty much just a prettied-up version of the first two, which is all we really wanted, anyway. Check out the slick camera action during the solo, though. So very cool. You can also check out video of Weezer's My Name is Jonas here.

New Dead Rising themes, picture packs, and in-game content are now available on Xbox Live. As for free stuff, you can treat everyone's favorite zombie-killing photojournalist, Frank West, to three new outfits: the Pure White Suit, the Stripe, and the Accountant. The two new themes (Jacket & Comic 1M and Image Board 1M) will each cost you 150 points, and either of the two new picture packs (Rat Man 1M or Cute 1M) will cost you 50.

I'm still terrified to play Dead Rising. Sure, I have a brand new copy and a completely different 360 to play it in, but I'm still too superstitious to actually fire it up.

According to EA, the latest entry in the Need for Speed franchise, Need for Speed ProStreet, takes the series in "a new direction." Executive Producer Larry LaPierre, who has one of the greatest names ever, described the new NfS this way:

Need for Speed ProStreet accelerates street racing culture by providing the ultimate stage for the pursuit of street racing supremacy. This is a game about building the ultimate performance-tuned battle machine, taking it to multi-disciplinary showdowns all over the world and pitting your skills and reputation against the very best street racers.

The cars in ProStreet will be tuneable and show damage, but overall it still doesn't sound all that different from previous Need for Speed titles. ProStreet is due out this fall.

In a recent post on CCP's blog, the company simultaneously defended itself against allegations of wrongdoing and took aim at one of EVE's biggest guilds, Goonfleet. For those new to this squabble, here's a bit of background: a GM supposedly joined a corporation in Goonfleet's alliance, made himself a director, then left. This raised suspicions of espionage and other such sneaky shenanigans. There were a few other issues as well, but that one was the biggie. CCP promised to do an internal investigation and deal accordingly with the matter.

Continue reading "CCP Squares Off Against EVE Online Players" »

WoW players are familiar with the name "Peons4Hire." Prior to the release of client version 2.1.0--in which were implemented a number of in-game tools to combat this sort of thing-- representatives of the gold-selling outfit incessantly spammed players via private messages, advertising the company's wares. While the reporting tools have curbed the solicitations, Blizzard announced that it will be taking legal action against Peons4Hire. In a post on the game's official message board, Community Manager Eyonix states that:

As part of the lawsuit, the operators of Peons4hire have been asked to immediately cease all in-game spamming efforts by all entities and websites under their control. If this organization refuses to act accordingly, further legal action will be taken.

Granted, Blizzard isn't suing the company for actually selling gold; it simply wants its representatives to quit harassing WoW players. Whether or not Blizzard ends up being the company that challenges the legality of selling in-game assets is yet to be determined. Frankly, I don't think they're wrong to be afraid of opening that can of worms.

Gold Spam: Our Continued Efforts [World of Warcraft General Discussion Forum]

This weekend, what's left of the qualifying U.S. teams in WoW's inaugural arena tournament will congregate at the House of Blues in San Diego for the event's regional finals. The winning team will take home a modest purse, and will advance to the world finals to be held at BlizzCon 2007 this August in Anaheim. At BlizzCon, teams from the U.S., Europe, and Korea will compete for the title of world champion, and a $25,000USD prize.

While many feel that the mass disqualifications that plagued the tournament have completely compromised its integrity, it's nonetheless important to note the significance of this event. Never before has a traditional MMORPG been fielded as an eSport to this degree, and if Blizzard and its partners manage to iron all the kinks out of the process, then the impact this will have on the genre could be immense. Definitely something to keep an eye on.

Regional Finals: World of Warcraft and Warcraft III [World of Warcraft Community Site]

GamesIndustry snagged Id Software's Todd Hollenshead for a moment recently and discovered that a new id property, complete with a new John Carmack engine, is currently in development:

It is a new id brand with an all-new John Carmack engine and I think that when we show it to people, once again they'll see, just like they saw when we first showed Doom 3, that John Carmack still has a lot of magic left.

Though he wouldn't say much about what it is, Hollenshead was clear about what it isn't, saying "it's not Doom, it's not Quake, it's not Wolfenstein, it's not Enemy Territory, it's not even Commander Keen." What? No next-gen Commander Keen? Booooooo!

Of course, Kohler told us all about this a while ago, and apparently is better at getting details than GamesIndustry is. Not that I'm biased, or anything. *cough*

Carmack "magic" powers new id software franchise [GamesIndustry]

This sci-fi take on Tower Defense games puts you in the role of a network security engineer in the year 3000, a time when viruses seem to be designed to entertain as well as invade, because they behave exactly like the "creeps" in other TD games, only more geometrical. You know the drill by now, you need to set up and upgrade defense towers in order to kill off the marching bad guys. This isn't my favorite TD game ever, but apparently I'll happily play anything in the genre.

VR Defender Y3K [Games 4 Work]

If you're ready to leave your mundane human existence behind, get into a DeSoto, and tear off down the street firing a giant pistol at an animated Abraham Lincoln statue, you are in luck: Game|Life's Sam and Max: Season 1 giveaway is still not over.

By creating a Sam and Max comic that gently pokes fun at some hot gaming industry topic, you -- you -- can win a digital copy of the entire first season of Sam and Max, courtesy Telltale Games. Do you understand how big this is? They've even got a comic strip creator to make it easy for you.

Let me say this also. The field is wide open. There have been a couple of okay submissions, but my socks have yet to be knocked off. You've only got thirtysomething hours to finish up, though, so do get over to the official contest page and get started.

Game|Life Giveaway: Sam and Max Season 1 [just click it]

There have been a lot of crazy rumors about just how small the new fake "E3" will be, but here's the proof. The largest booths on the "show floor" (an airplane hangar in Santa Monica) will be twenty feet by twenty feet. That's smaller than my tiny apartment.

What I've heard is that you'll be able to take a tour of the entire hangar in about 45 minutes. Maybe an hour tops. This means that the real action is going to be happening in private meetings in hotel suites with the publishers, which don't require an "E3" invitation -- just the publisher's say-so. So don't fret too much, smaller publications, if you only got one "E3" invite. You'll totally be able to cover the hangar on your own.

After the break, the full floor plan (obtained here).

Continue reading "E3's Tiny, Tiny Floor Plans Revealed" »

Cnet asks if digital movie downloads can help the ailing PSP:

The Financial Times, for instance, reported last December that Sony planned to launch a PSP download store early this year. But as April heads into May, still no store. A Sony spokesman declined to discuss the issue.

To some observers, a PSP video store is an admission by Sony that the company's Universal Media Discs (UMDs), the mini DVDs that play only on PSPs, are a bust.

Continue reading "PSP and the Disappearing Downloads" »

If you want your Wii shooters to be even more realistic, perhaps you'd enjoy this Wii Blaster. Scheduled for release on June 26 by a company called Core Gamer, the Blaster houses the Wiimote in a casing shaped like a shotgun.

Silly? Hell yes. I'm not even sure this thing is a piece of electronics. Judging by the company's other Wii products, which include plastic shells shaped like tennis rackets, this might just be a cheapo mechanical device that pulls the B trigger via pulleys and levers and springs.

Nintendo showed a product that looked similar at E3, but hasn't actually said whether they'll release it or what. Don't be fooled into thinking this is it.

Wii Blaster [Gamestop]

Tomorrow, Capcom will premiere a series of television shorts based on the popular Ace Attorney game series, the fourth of which exploded onto the Japanese sales charts this week.

While it's not known whether the shorts will be animated or live-action, the official site promises that viewers will be treated to a mystery story that they can attempt to solve. Another clip featuring the solution will then be placed on the website.

Gyakuten Saiban 4 Official Site [via Insert Credit]

Silicon Knights, already hard at work on Too Human for Xbox 360 and an unannounced next-generation project for Sega, has told Gamasutra that the company will soon be adding a third project to its workload.

While nothing else was unveiled about the project, Dyack added that it will necessitate growing the Toronto-area game developer's staff by 50%, adding another 75 members to its current crew of 150.

The King of Silicon Knights: Denis Dyack's Quest For a New Game Biz [Gamasutra]

If you've just upgraded to an Xbox 360 Elite and need to transfer the contents of your old hard drive to your new 120 GB hotness, Microsoft has your solution: they'll send you a transfer cable free of charge.

Sadly, rather than just providing a Web form to fill out, they're making you print out a .PDF and fill it in with your serial numbers. I guess they want to make  sure that they don't send out any more cables than absolutely necessary, but surely they could have come up with a more appropriate solution for the Internet Age? Leap into the nineties already, Microsoft.

Hard Drive Transfer Kit For Xbox 360 Elite [Microsoft]

There's likely no sound bites in this CNN Money wrapup of the PlayStation 3 that you haven't heard a hundred times before, but how can I resist that phrase?

Indeed, the PS3 may be the chrome-trimmed headstone on the grave of convergence. It has been a long-held, oft-stated dream of both Sony and Microsoft... that videogame consoles are little Trojan horses. [...] Nintendo took a different tack. When you buy a videogame console, the company says, you want to play games. Period. A console is not a Swiss Army knife. [...] If you want a DVD player, you'll buy a DVD player.

I've never been too big on "convergence," having seen it fail over and over again with CD-i, LaserActive, PSX, and on and on. Then again, I didn't buy a DVD player -- I used my PlayStation 2. Maybe convergence only appeals to people who were going to buy a video game system anyway, which means it doesn't really work at all. What do you guys think?

Where Sony went wrong [CNN]

Although they're currently in the process of having the instrumental music genre ripped cruelly from their helpless hands, Konami is doing a decent job of keeping Dance Dance Revolution relevant, as evidenced by a front-page article in today's New York Times.

The piece is on how a West Virginia school district is using DDR in their physical education classes, causing children to become actually excited over working up a sweat before history class. Hardly original, but nice to see that it's catching on. Certainly I'd have enjoyed gym a lot more if there were video games. I'd have enjoyed it even more if it was Guitar Hero instead of DDR but I see where that might have defeated the purpose.

PE Classes Turn To Video Game That Works Legs [New York Times]

Game designer Richard Garriott was one of the first investors into zero-gravity adventure flight company Zero G, and was present last week when the company took Stephen Hawking up in one of its aircraft.

But don't listen to me -- go read Garriott's blog, where he personally recounts the experience... and Hawking's reaction:

It was amazing.  The zero-g part was wonderful, I could have gone on and on – space here I come!

Somehow I feel a lot better about sending Stephen Hawking into space than, say, Lance Bass.

Richard Garriott blogs about Hawking flight [Tabula Rasa]

Mobile games publisher Gameloft announced this morning that the publisher has reached record first-quarter sales of €22.7 million this year, up 54% from Q1 2006.

Gameloft attributed the sales to its catalog of popular properties, which includes Lost and Desperate Housewives, as well as strong sales of back catalog titles. The company released 45 new games in 2006, more than double its 2005 roster.

Based on this news, the company is now forecasting higher-than-predicted annual sales of €95-100 million.

On Wii's Virtual Console today, America continues trailing behind Europe and Japan with two games that the rest of Planet Earth played a month ago: Castlevania and Legend of the Mystical Ninja. Two quality pieces of entertainment, to be sure, but sloppy seconds is never fun.

Europe got Final Fight and Mighty Bomb Jack yesterday, so we can probably assume we'll get those sometime in May. At least we also got Shockman today. Don't have that, do you, Europe?

When you're constantly behind, you've got to take whatever little victories you can.

Bethesda proved they're as good as their word and posted the patch for Oblivion expansion Shivering Isles today, as promised. Patches for both the 360 version and the PC version have been posted.

The patch, which only addresses the Shivering Isles bug, fixes a Form ID issue that eventually rendered the game unplayable. After about 50-100 hours of gameplay after downloading the Shivering Isles expansion, players would find that in-game objects and items began to disappear, never to return.

Unfortunately, whether or not the patch will help save your game depends largely on how far you were into it when you stopped playing. If you passed the point of no return, so to speak, you'll just plain have to start over. Check out  this thread in the official forum for info on the PC fix.

At the moment, NeuroSky's biofeedback headsets are little more than nifty parlor tricks, but in the future they could tap into a player's thoughts to control video games. The current demo model of the headset is used to control a light saber right out of Star Wars; concentrate hard enough, and the saber stays lit. Let your mind wander, however, and the Force will not be with you.

The folks at NeuroSky figure that similar technology could be used to make video games a more immersive and personal experience for players. If you're not concentrating enough, for example, your aim will be lousy, or perhaps your dexterity will drop making it harder for you to pick a lock. Focusing your brain power could speed up the time it takes you to reload your weapon, give you special attacks, or even drop you into a bullet-time zen-like state. Just building on the light saber theme, the potential for Star Wars games becomes obvious.

Still, as cool as this tech is, it's not the first time we've been told that some new technothingie will be reading our thoughts, only to have our hopes of VR helmets dashed by an utter lack  of follow-through. Reports like this one surface every so often, but almost nothing ever comes of it. Still, how nifty would a light saber only you could control be?

New Toys Read Brain Waves [Associated Press]

We had back-to-back double headers on Xbox Live Arcade the past two weeks, and this week, we're getting a triple helping of games: Catan, Centipede, and Millipede. Ok, Centipede and Millipede are practically the same game, so maybe it's more like 2.5 games than three, but still, we're going to be spoiled rotten if Microsoft maintains this kind of release schedule. About time, too.

Centipede and Millipede you're (most likely) already know, but you may not be familiar with Catan, which is the Arcade version of classic board game Settlers of Catan by Klaus Teuber. (You may not know his name, but he's huge in the world of board games.) Teuber worked with Big Huge Games to get Catan just right for the Arcade, so at least we know it's not some hacked-to-pieces port. The strategy game will offer gameplay for up to four people over Live, and is one of those easy-to-learn/ difficult-to-master titles that will have you obsessing over various strategies and plans of attack.

Centipede and Millipede will run you 400 points each, while Catan will cost the full 800.

EA has announced that the Washington Wizards' Gilbert Arenas will be gracing the cover of NBA Live 08. All-star Arenas was the number three scorer in the league, finishing the season with an average of 28.4 points per game. "Agent Zero," as he's known, seemed genuinely excited about being the NBA Live poster boy:

This is a dream come true. I’m a huge gamer and have been playing NBA Live since 1995. I never imagined that I would see my face on the cover of an EA Sports video game.

It used to be Wheaties boxes. Now I guess it's EA Sports covers.

The Burnout series has always been absurd amounts of fun, but a bit rigid, structure-wise, an issue that will apparently be addressed by the next iteration, Burnout Paradise. Instead having to proceed through an orderly progression of events, unlocking a specified number before being allowed access to new tracks and races, you'll be able to drive anywhere you like, finding events as you go.

No menus, no load times, just driving the way the good lord meant for it to be: with lots of crashes and at super-fast speeds. I may actually pass out from the sheer awesomeness of this. Whilst you ponder the beauty of driving through a city, looking for ideal locations to set up crashes or signature takedowns, check out the trailer.  the trailer up above there. 

It was a sad time in St. Louis Sunday morning, when Cardinal fans awoke with the news that relief pitcher Josh Hancock had died in an early-morning automobile accident. The news undoubtedly affected a wide cross-section of folks, thousands of fans and hundreds of family members, to be sure. And not to be too crass about it, but it also affected some fantasy baseball leagues.

Make no mistake, Hancock was no stud when it came to the fantasy circuit, so he wasn't an extremely popular player in that regard. He was a serviceable middle reliever, who probably filled a need for some 12-team, NL-only leagues. So it's fascinating to see some fantasyheads out there picking up Hancock, if only as a nod to a horrible tragedy and a tribute to a classy ballplayer. Here's a snapshot from today's Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball transactions wire:

In Dealing With Gravity, you're actually dealing with gravity, spiky things, and between one and four balls. Using the arrow keys helps influence the path of your bouncing charges, but only to a certain extent. I like the name, though, I think it could lead to other game titles like "Coping With Alien Invasion" and "So You Want To Steal Cars."

Dealing With Gravity [Albino Blacksheep]

Electronic Arts, MTV, and Harmonix will announce the Guitar Hero maker's next game this Monday in an early-morning teleconference.

In an email to media late Friday night, representatives of the companies said that MTV and Harmonix will also unveil a "first of its kind" partnership with major record labels and music publishers; representatives of those labels will be on hand during the teleconference.

Electronic Arts announced at Game Developers' Conference earlier this month that they would publish Harmonix's next game, but did not give any more details at that time.

1up's Jenn Frank makes a brief reference to Koyaanisqatsi in her blog about the GTAIV trailer, and the next thing you know, a great li'l discussion is going on about Grand Theft Auto and the anonymity of urban life:

The city is its own mysterious character in the story—you need the Big City. “Grand Theft Suburb” would be a really, really sad game where you have to shoot people you actually know. GTA’s violence relies on anonymity, and the game itself is all about urban anonymity. It’s about the same twenty pedestrians cycling past on the street, about the same certain identical buildings you don’t get to walk into, about how no one notices you unless you run them over with a car.

Urbanity, modernity, identity, and Grand Theft Auto IV [Infinite Lives]

Tastes Like A Dippy MP3 Player! [Gadget Lab]
The best Easter gift ever: a crappy MP3 player in a chocolate egg. Eat the chocolate, then listen to like 40 megs of music on your new cheapo MP3 player that smells like chocolate and saliva.

Stroker Serpentine, Second Life's Porn Mogul, Speaks [Wired News]
Regina Lynn interviews Second Life's "pervert at large, erotic facilitator, pornographic mogul." The net is vast and infinite.

Chinese Dragon Doesn't Have Eyeballs [Table of Malcontents]
A Chinese corporation starts building a 13-mile-long dragon to increase tourism, but doesn't bother to ask the government whether it's okay. It's not, apparently, and now there's a half-finished dragon sitting around.

There's a new Reno 911 Shockwave game over on Comedy Central, and it's bad, and you shouldn't bother. I post this mostly because you might get tempted into playing it -- after all, shouldn't playing 3D paintball versus low-poly representations of your favorite crooked cops be awesome no matter what?

But no, it's totally lame and unfun. It's not even that funny -- it sounds like they're using the original cast, but they don't say much beyond a few throwaway lines. With huge loading times between each level, it's not even a good time-waster because by the time it's loaded you've killed all the time you need to.

Reno 911 Paintball [Comedy Central]

On this week's episode of Retronauts, Jeremy Parish, Scott Sharkey, Ray Barnholt, Ryan Scott, and myself discuss that sticky situation called emulation.

Obviously we all just talked in circles, since everybody has ROMs on their computer they don't technically own, but that doesn't make it right.

Come listen to us ramble and reminisce.

Retronauts Episode 17 [1up]

This is WiiGoBot, a robotic Lego contraption programmed to play Wii Bowling. It can bowl perfect games, which of course makes me feel woefully inadequate on a variety of different levels. Check the site for a bunch more pictures and how it was programmed... and in fact, here's a video of the feat.

WiiGoBot, The Perfect Game [BattleBricks]

All kinds of new Virtual Console announcements for all regions are coming down the pipe today, including the horriffic news that Europe is getting Punch-Out first. What gives? Does Nintendo of America know how much this hurts me? If there's no Punch-Out on my Wii by Monday, I'm going on a hunger strike.

Other news in the world of downloadable Nintendo gamez:

• Europe also gets Legend of the Mystical Ninja and Dragon Curse (Turbo) today. What a significantly better week than mine!
• Japan, in addition to their current cornucopia of selections, is getting a bunch more games in April, including Punch-Out (ARGH), Star Fox 64, and the wonderful Kirby's Dream Course (!).
• Nintendo remains mum on what we're getting this month, but Hudson has announced the four games they'll bring to the TurboGrafx in the US: Bravoman, Bonk's Revenge, Battle Lode Runner, and Shockman.

Punch-Out Leads VC Update [Eurogamer]

Are you as desperate for more Phoenix Wright games as I am, that you'll sit and watch a random promotional video with barely-animated teaser artwork and music? I know you are. I doubt the Japanese release of Ace Attorney 4 will have English text. We'll just have to hope that Capcom is totally on the ball here. Hey, don't they have a press conference on April 11? Fingers crossed.

Gyakuten Saiban 4 Promo [YouTube]

Microsoft announced today that two new multiplayer maps for Halo 2, developed by Austin, Texas-based Certain Affinity, will be available April 17.

The maps are both based on popular maps from the first Halo; "Tombstone" is a "reimagining" of "Hang 'Em High" and "Desolation" is a deathmatch-oriented remake of "Derelict." The map pack will cost $4.

Certain Affinity was founded last year by former Halo 2 and Halo 3 multiplayer team lead Max Hoberman. Full release after the jump.

Continue reading "Microsoft Outsources New Halo 2 Maps" »

Imagine Mike Thompson's surprise when, while watching a piece on Nightline about every gamer's favorite lawyer, Jack Thompson, he recognized a cartoon that he himself had drawn of Thompson back in December of 2006. (See Jack in the noose? That's his stuff.) Thompson, who currently writes for Gay Gamer, hadn't been contacted by ABC at any point for permission to use his artwork, which was especially vexing since ABC had decided to alter the comic so that it would better suit the broadcast.

Mike showed me the cartoon back when he originally drew it; to my (and his) knowledge, it's never lived anywhere other than his own website or his Flickr account. It's especially stupid since, like all starving artists, Mike would've been more than happy to say "Hell, yeah!" had he only been asked. Bad form, ABC, bad form.

Although many squawked about Phantasy Star Universe's pay-to-play fee, I was fine with it. I had, after all, invested hundreds and hundreds of hours on the previous version of Phantasy Star Online, and thoroughly expected to do the same with Universe, so paying a bit extra to play each month didn't faze me all that much. The price to play had gone up since the Online days; then it was $15 for a three month block, now it was $9.99 a month, on top of my yearly subscription to Xbox Live. Again, I didn't mind, because a basic change in the game's structure designed to cut down on cheating--keeping all my online data server side, as opposed to console-side--seemed worth the relatively small bump in price, especially if it prevented all those asshats with duped items or hacked Mags. I fired up the game, punched in my credit card info, and started playing.

Want to know what happened next? Of course you do.

Continue reading "How Phantasy Star Universe Ripped Me Off" »

Gaming accessory maker Nyko has put their adapter that would have let PlayStation 3 owners play Guitar Hero on their machine on "indefinite hold" after finding out that, uh, it doesn't actually work:

Citing "limitations in the PlayStation 3 hardware" the company says it has been "prevented from releasing this product with support for Guitar Hero." Given this hardware roadblock, Nyko reps say that "the product has unfortunately been put on hold indefinitely."

Sure, the product likely works fine with regular PlayStation 2 controllers, but who'd bother with that when they're nearly identical to Sixaxis and rumble wouldn't work anyway? This product was clearly for Guitar Hero fans. Sony needs to come up with a solution and fast, because this incompatibility really sucks -- and Guitar Hero for 360 is coming up soon.

Nyko Guitar Hero Adapter "On Hold" [Kotaku]

Nintendo is hiring a Virtual Console coordinator! Everybody knows Virtual Console is screwed up, so maybe you can get hired to fix it. Ha ha! By "fix it" I of course mean "take the blame."

Here's the job duties:

• Coordinates the production of Wii Shop Channel content, including Virtual Console and other digitally distributed titles
• Works primarily on materials for Wii Shop Channel catalog, including reviewing screenshots for quality and recapturing imagery as necessary
• Reviews submitted content descriptions
• Arranges for proof-reading and/or translation of content descriptions as appropriate
• Arranges for creation of content descriptions as necessary
• Verifies ESRB ratings and proper copyright/trademark attribution
• Researches original release dates, tracking progress of catalog materials development
• Makes suggestions regarding title selection and release schedules
• Some data accumulation and statistical reporting/analysis is required
• Makes recommendations regarding product release schedules and online product presentation/sales materials

This pop-up ad just got all up in my face, just a minute ago. I'd have closed it, but I was laughing too hard and decided to share it with you. Also, I clicked on it and minutes later, a free Nintendo Wii System showed up at my house!

April Fool's Day is practically upon us, and so what better time to look back upon those instances when the joke was on us, the gamers? Pete over at 99 Lives has compiled what he believes to be the Top Five Hoax Game Consoles evar. Did any of us ever actually fall for any of these? Oh, yeah, we kind of did, didn't we? Dammit. Mind you, he doesn't include the Phantom in there, but we won't hold that against him.

The Top Five Hoax Game Consoles [99 Lives]

A Portuguese game magazine has a special feature on the upcoming Wii version of Nights, and sympathetic characters on NeoGAF have posted scans of the images and translated an interview with director Takeshi Iizuka:

Q: Which new flight manoeuvers will this charismatic figure be able to perform?
A: NiGHTS will have a considerable number of acrobatic movements, many of them never seen before, for the player to perform easily using the Wii controller. You can count on loops, spins, and other manoeuvers which will be kept secret for now.

Nights Wii [NeoGAF]

The world "classic" gets tossed around a lot in the world of gaming, but completely appropriate and deserved when applied to one of the Eidos titles now available for download on Steam, Deus Ex. The graphics of Deus Ex won't exactly make you long for the video cards of yesteryear, but its gameplay and plot are still some of the most engaging and fun you'll ever experience. Its sequel, Invisible War, also now available, doesn't quite live up to its predecessor's legacy, but at least it's a lot easier on the eyes.

Joining the Deus Ex duo are Rogue Trooper, and the colon trio of Project: Snowblind, Tomb Raider: Legend, and Thief: Deadly Shadows. All of the games are being offered at a discount until April 9; after that, Snowblind, Trooper, and Just Cause (which was already on Steam) are being offered in an "Eidos Action Pack" combo.

Oh, one last thing. It's pronounced "Day-us," not "Deuce." I can't tell you the number of people I've heard get that wrong. Drives me batty.

Eidos Brings Deus Ex, Thief to Steam [Gamasutra]

IDC analyst Billy Pidgeon thinks that the arrival of Elite Xbox 360, with its sleek black exterior and whopping 120 GB hard drive, will do little to increase Microsoft's market share. Pidgeon think that's it's software, not hardware, that will help Microsoft do battle against Nintendo and Sony in the year to come:

The higher price and the 120GB hard-drive upgrade should increase revenue for Microsoft and for retailers, but system-selling games such as Halo 3 will increase the 360's position more significantly.

Pidgeon also figures that moves like extending Live to Vista users, allowing for things like cross platform play (Shadowrun, mmmm), will be an important factor moving forward. He figures the smart thing for Microsoft to do would be to lower the price of both the Premium 360 and the 120 GB hard drive.

Elite won't improve Microsoft's market share, warns analyst [GamesIndustry]

UK Home Secretary John Reid has banned PS3s from British prisons, but it's probably not for the reason you think. One might argue that letting prisoners game their sentences away is a wee bit on the posh side, but that's not the issue here; rather it's the PS3s WiFi capabilities as well as its ability to share info with a PSP that has the government pulling the plug.

A prison break planned via PS3 and PSP would, officially, be the Coolest Thing Ever. Inasmuch as felons escaping into the general population is cool, that is. Expect this scenario to show up in a Hackers-esque movie sometime next year--you heard it here first.

PS3 Banned from Prisons [Next-Gen]

If you missed F.E.A.R. when it came out for the PC, and again when it came out for the 360, you're getting one more shot when it comes out for the PS3 on April 24th. The game blends first person shooter gameplay with Max Payne-esque bullet time (but what doesn't, these days?) and scares straight out of Japanese horror movies like Ringu. I tried it on the 360 and wasn't overly impressed, but that's me. Maybe I'm just like my mother. She's never satisfied.

Anyway, the PS3 version will have a few new bells and whistles to tickle your gaming fancy, including "Instant Action Mode," which is an arcade-style, close quarters fighting. (Read: deathmatches.)

F.E.A.R. Arriving on PS3s on 24 April [El33tonline]

Attention Suckers: Fake iPhone for Sale! [Cult of Mac]
Want an iPhone? Too bad. Want a fake papercraft iPhone in a real Apple box? You're in luck! Bidding's up to $150, because the human race is made up of huge idiots!

Vista BSOD, Mac Pro Edition [Monkey Bites]
Michael Calore tries installing Vista on the Mac Pro we have in the test lab (also known as the corner office I will eventually occupy when I am king of Wired), and gets a BSOD. And is so happy that he takes a whole gallery of pics.

Brits Balk At Vista Prices [Gadget Lab]
The price of Windows Vista is about 66% higher in England, and they're not happy about it. To the point that they're asking Tony Blair to ask Microsoft to lower the price. Maybe if this was Soviet Russia (where OS install you). Advice from me: Wait till PS3 launches, then see how cheap Vista looks.

Wiicade, the intertubes' premier destination for Flash games that you can play in your Wii browser, have just done the impossible -- they've figured out how to interpret Wiimote button commands in the Web browser. This has led them to develop an API for the Wiimote, which can easily be embedded into existing Flash games to make them playable with the Wii's D-pad and buttons.

I didn't even know the Wii Opera browser even looked for button inputs, considering that all you do is point and click A. But it does. Now, the $64,000 question: does it look for waggle? Might motion sensitive, user-created Wiimote Flash games be next? For the time being, check out what the first few hackers have slapped together -- none of the games are particularly amazing, but as a proof of concept, playing them is exhilarating.

Wiicade API (thanks, Jess!)

I don't care what Kotaku has to say on the subject: I am of the opinion that Punch-Out!! The Movie is fantastic. Why? Because one of these two things is true:

1. This was filmed in the 80's, and only recently spruced up with all the digital enhancements, meaning that this was twenty years in the making, or
2. This was filmed very recently, and these kids respect their history.

Also, the fact that it will probably make you go blind.

Nintendo, I know you submitted Punch-Out!! to the ESRB for Virtual Console. Let's get it up there. Look what I've been reduced to! Next thing you know I'll be linking Little Mac's Confession again. Oh no!

An Awful Punch-Out Movie, Just For You [Kotaku]

Want a van with the Wii logo on it? You can now purchase, from eBay of all places, the grand prize from Comedy Central's Thanksgiving Wii-kend promotion last year: a customized Scion XB. There's been a lot of custom work done to this car to trick it out -- besides the superfly paint job, there's, like, four LCD monitors inside the seat backs. Perfect for wagglin' on the go.

Or, I mean, you could always just make a Zelda car.

Buy the Wii-mobile [eBay, via Kotaku]

Citizen Zero, a game you've never heard of and were never going to play anyway, was taken out back and shot today by developers Micro Forte.

Just to give you an idea, Citizen Zero, perhaps best described as an MMO shooter, was first previewed at IGN in 2000, and last previewed in 2004. It was a little mini-Duke Nukem Forever.

And now it's officially dead. Micro Forte only made this announcement so they could start hyping up their next game which will never come out, "a top-secret spy-themed MMO."

More promises in the form of a full press release, after the jump.

Continue reading "Mercy Killing: Citizen Zero Cancelled" »

So what does it mean that John Riccitiello is back in charge of Electronic Arts, less than three years after leaving the company? I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea. I just wrote up the story and left it at that.

But this doesn't mean the news isn't important. And quite frankly, when I realized I didn't have an opinion on a story that Next-Gen headlined in ALL CAPS, I had gosh darned well better get one. So I figured I'd do some reading.

Mercury News' Mike Antonucci says:

I believe it’s still, in this day and age, invaluable for an organization to have leadership that exemplifies integrity. That strikes me as Riccitiello’s ultimate  value to EA. You can have someone brilliant running a company, but not believe the individual is a quality person. I think Riccitiello represents quality in that basic sense. And that’s indispensable.

Newsweek's N'Gai Croal speaks to both men, and Riccitiello explains the timing:

It would have been challenging for any new CEO going into one of the most challenging transitions in the history of this industry. Every one of the major publishers has been challenged through this. Larry did all of the right stuff leading it through, and I'm frankly thankful that he did so. It's exactly the right call.

And Next-Gen quotes a Lazard Capital Markets analyst who calls the move a "positive":

While it is too early to judge what impact there will be on the company (and the executive ranks) as a result of the appointment, we believe Mr. Riccitiello is well respected within the company and the industry.

So in contrast to the typical executive shakeup, this is being received as a good thing -- one of EA's best coming home to head the whole show. With more competition for EA than ever (and them still playing catch-up with Wii and DS), we'll see what impact Riccitiello has on the outsider's view of the company.

Can Gundam plus Dynasty Warriors save the PS3's bacon in Japan? Namco Bandai, Koei, and especially Sony certainly hope so. Gundam Musou, which combines Dynasty Warriors' full-on battlefield action with Gundam's walking robots, ships tomorrow in Japan, and 1up has an interview with the game's producer Yoshiyasu Horiuchi:

In order to bring the best possible game and atmosphere to the North American market, we traveled to the US several times to hear the opinions of American players. We heard lots of different views on the Gundam franchise, and in the end, I think that Gundam Musou has turned out to be the kind of game American players will look forward to.

Huh. Well, I guess that means it's coming to America. Now I feel a little dumb having dropped $70 on the import. Uh, expect impressions sooner rather than later, though!

Gundam Musou Interview [1up]

If you think you can do voice work for video games, just know that it requires that you go in there and do this for basically hours. Here's veteran voiceover dude Frank Welker recording Curious George-type noises for the Namco Bandai game. This should either encourage your ambition or squash it entirely.

Frank Welker as Curious George [Gameoftheblog, via GameSetWatch]

You are, I don't know, some sort of bomb thing, I guess. A bomb thing with a deep and death-defying love of base jumping. The object is to jump as quickly as possible, and deploy your parachute as late as possible, so you're not the last bomb to hit the ground. Of course, if you wait too long before hitting the parachute button, you hit the ground at rather too fast a speed to be completely healthy for a creature already inclined to explode. If you deploy too early, you'll float to the ground later than all your bomb-kin, and explode anyway. The choice is yours.

Elite Base Jump [BubbleBox]

Sega continues their expansion into the wide world of Western licensed content today, revealing new details about the video game of the movie of the book The Golden Compass, the first in the His Dark Materials trilogy.

Specifically, they're going all Happy Feet on this one, publishing the game for all three next-gen consoles, both portables, PS2, and PC this holiday season. That's a tall order for Sega, but they've got help: Shiny Entertainment, you know, the Enter the Matrix guys, are all over this one.

Okay, those aren't inspiring words. Let's all keep our fingers crossed. Full release after the jump.

Continue reading "Sega and Shiny's Dark Materials" »

Eidos seems to have decided that a good way to sell their Sudoku game for PSP would be to import B-list UK celebrity Carol Vorderman, who hosts TV talk shows about... math and things. Here she is explaining to you, America, how to play Sudoku. In anticipation of you buying it for the PSP next week. I guess we're trading Jack Thompson for her?

Why would anyone want to play Sudoku on PSP? I don't even know how that would work. Picking numbers from a menu? Just buy Brain Age already and get it over with.

In the third segment of a four-part interview with Newsweek's N'Gai Croal, Sony worldwide studios president Phil Harrison admits that, in at least one area, Sony performed poorly last year:

We did a very bad job between E3 2006 and the media event in October. And something which in hindsight I wished we had done--but that's 20/20 vision--I wished we had released a movie showing the Xross Media Bar in action to the Web after E3 2006. Not maybe showing every single feature, but just to give people something to chew on.

Obviously, it's a very small admission (I think on the list of things Sony did badly last year, not releasing a movie of the XMB would probably fall towards the bottom), but acceptance is the first step to recovery.

Loot: The Phil Harrison Interview [Newsweek]

When Mark Kern, President of Red 5 Studios (and former team lead on WoW) decided he wanted to recruit some new staff, he didn't just place a want ad or send out a few emails--he did something far, far cooler. They sent some very special gifts to folks they found interesting: an iPod Shuffle with the candidate's name engraved on it and loaded with a customized, prerecorded message. The response rate? Just about 100%  And who says the gaming industry is lacking in creativity?

Oh, and if someone sent me an iPod like that? I'd totally have their baby.

Pushing the Envelope: Red 5 Recruiting [The Escapist]

I guess I'm really late on this, but apparently GameBox 1.0 is an actual movie. The trailer is phenomenal. It has Topanga. And just when you think it can't get any better, "Bring Me To Life" kicks in at the end.

I hate that someone thought I would be entertained by this.

Play.d's February issue features an interview with 1UP News Dude Luke Smith that basically credits him with revitalizing not only the formerly lackluster 1UP network, but also game journalism itself. Luke, as famous for his sweaters as he is for his take-no-prisoners attitude, is appropriately humble, attributing his success to the guidance and influence of folks like Dan Hsu and John Davison.

The article's main thrust is that Luke's refusal to suck up to developers or publishers is inspiring folks like you (yes you) to learn more about the industry and to not just take a company's PR at face value. I say anything that gets people to care more about gaming is good, and if a grouch on a podcast gets people revved up, I'm fine with that. (I say that with love,  o scruffy one.)

One thing the article got absolutely right is Luke's dedication to his audience--"the people," as he refers to them.  I joke about the number of asshats you run into in this line of work, but  Luke is definitely what you call  One of the Good Guys.

Luke Smith Interview [play.d]

It's a familiar situation: you want to get your game on, but your roomie is hogging the TV watching a Gilmore Girls marathon. Solution? The Argo + personal display system from 22Moo.

The goggles will make you look like a bit of a tool, but since they're fully compatible with your Xbox, 360, PS2 or Wii, how much do you really care? They'll actually work with anything with an appropriate AV output, like a DVD player or, if you're feeling particularly retro, a VCR. Heck, they're even compatible with iPods and Zunes. The glasses will cost you a cool $349 (yikes!), but work in either NTSC or PAL format.

The question is, how long can you stand watching something that close to your eyeballs? I seem to recall the Virtual Boy making me very, very ill, though that might just've been a reaction to the bloodred color scheme of the graphics.

22Moo intros 11+ new video eyewear products [Engadget]

Konami has announced that as of April 2, they will be shutting down the North American online service for Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. Konami thanked folks for playing the game for their continued support, blahblahblah, we're still pulling the plug. They also said this:

The Metal Gear online tradition of stealth, action and team play continues on the PSP system with Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops with all-new characters, levels and modes of play.

So, does this say "yeah, we want you to stop playing MGS3 so you'll buy Portable Ops instead" to anyone else?

Konami to End MGS 3 Subsistence Online Service in April [GamersReports]

The first ever (what, nobody's done this before?) American Anime awards were handed out at Comic Con last week, and Squeenix's Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children took home the prize for Best Anime Feature. Shinji Hashimoto, Producer on the flick, was very gracious with his thanks:

Thanks to the dedication of our loyal fans, Final Fantasy VII has come to enjoy 10 years of undying popularity...we're sure fans enjoyed seeing old friends brought to new life on the screen. As creators, we are very proud of the finished product, and as developers, it is truly an honor to receive an award of this magnitude.

FF VII: Advent Children Named "Best Anime Feature" [Game Daily]

All you fans of ye olde pointe and clicke games, take note: The first ever adventure game convention will be hitting the Mirage hotel in Las Vegas this August. AdventureCon was originally slated as a celebration of the 30th anniversary of Infocom classic Zork (the very game that introduced  me to the genre back in the day), but eventually grew to encompass the entire adventure genre.

Confirmed guests include Leisure Suit Larry creator Al Lowe and adventure game goddess Jane Jensen, author of the Gabriel Knight series whose current project, Gray Matter keeps getting bumped, dammit. Other speakers should be announced shortly, but you can certainly expect adventure game workshops, panel discussions, and vendors galore. Also, a "Zork" room, which will undoubtedly have a tribute to small mailboxes containing leaflets.

By the way, if you're interested in making your own old-school text adventure a la Zork, you just can't beat Inform 7, which lets you use plain English instead of dense coding and rules. Give it a shot!

AdventureCon Plans Adventure Game Celebration [Gamasutra]

I'm one of the few people I know who really tried XBLA game Outpost Kaloki X, so you'll just have to trust me that you should be excited to hear that its successor, Space Station Tycoon, is coming to the Wii. Ok, the name sucks canal water (sorry, Doug, but there should really be a five-year ban on putting "Tycoon" in game titles), but the core gameplay will echo most of Outpost's resource management scheme and will undoubtedly feature Wahoo's trademark humor.

As you might expect, the point of the game is to try to keep a space station up and running while facing obstacles like demanding customers, meteor showers, and abject poverty. The Wiimote (I don't care what Orland says, I'm still using that) is a natural fit for this kind of game, as its pointer abilities make it functionally identical to a mouse, the ideal interface for a Tycoon-type game.

Namco Bandai Signs Outpost Kaloki X Follow-Up for Wii [Gamasutra]

Last night, I stayed up really late and finished up Hotel Dusk: Room 215, a new DS game developed by CING, the creator of Trace Memory. It draws a lot from the point-and-click adventure genre, presenting lots of find-item-use-item puzzles, dialogue trees with mysterious characters, and lots of interaction with the touch screen. If you're a fan of adventure games and "digital novels" -- and I am both -- this is a game that you're likely to play.

But you'll find that the presentation and story are way, way better than the gameplay.

Continue reading "Hotel Dusk: Great Cinema, Bad Puzzles" »

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Sparks Bomb Panic in Boston [Table of Malcontents]
Turner distributed a bunch of Lite-Brite lookin' things to viral marketers, who placed them around a bunch of major metropolitan areas to promote Adult Swim. Unfortunately, the city of Boston thought they were bombs and shut the city down while they disarmed all the little Errs.

Vista Unpacking Porn [Monkey Bites]
Michael Calore unpacks a copy of Vista! Well, it's a press review copy in a FedEx envelope, but who cares. This is the closest I'll get to Vista for a while.

All-You-Can-Play Buffet [Wired Mag]
My article on the glories of GameTap, along with some exclusive new info about their upcoming projects. Check it out, along with my mini-review of Phoenix Wright Justice for All further down the page.

I know Dave Jaffe doesn't like journos covering his blog, but uh, how am I supposed to stay away from this story? They're having a focus test session right now for his PlayStation Network game Calling All Cars, and he's liveblogging as it takes place. Very candidly.

1:49- Moving to split screen...man tester #5 is a fucking dolt!!! What the hell?!?! He is just driving in circles...not even playing the game...is that fucking spit drooling out of his stupid fucking mouth!?!?! Ahem,well...anyway.... :)

1:56- IM comment from Adam on player #5...who seems to be unable to do anything but sit upright and not fall over:

adamorth (1:53:11 PM): should i put 5 into split next game or let him drive in circles on his own?

This is a must-read.

Live Blogging the Focus Test [Jaffe's Game Design]

I don't know how Simon Carless finds these things, but he points out today that you can own the biggest piece of Gizmondo history ever -- their whole, massive, ridiculous trade show booth. Entertain your friends in the Gizmondo diner! Take press inquiries at the oil-barrel desk in a seedy back alley! The best part is, this 2-million dollar display is selling for a scant $110,000. You just have to pick it up in Las Vegas. Bonus points if you hitch it to the back of your Enzo, then crash the whole shebang somewhere.

The Frowny, Disoriented Face of Gizmondo [GameSetWatch]

Sony has finalized this week's updates to the PlayStation Store. The Blast Factor multiplayer pack -- which I'm still not really sure if it's online or is just local -- and Jet Moto for the PSP will hit on Thursday. $3 for the Blast Factor pack, $6 for Jet Moto.

Then, on Friday, it'll be February and there will still be no news about playing those PS1 games on the actual PlayStation 3, even though it was supposed to happen before the end of 2006.

Full release after the jump, not that there was much in there.

Continue reading "PS3 Updates: Blast Factor, Jet Moto" »

Mario Kart 64 fanatics are saying that the version on Virtual Console looks pretty nice, what with all the 480p and all, but they're bummed at the lack of ghost data. If you had an N64 Memory Card, you could save your best track runs and compete against yourself. This isn't possible in the Virtual Console version; apparently Nintendo just wasn't able to emulate the Memory Card properly.

Well, this bites. For Mario Kart, but also for any N64 game that required the Memory Card to save. Which a few of them did, although I'm not sure if any of them were any good (or were ever going to show up on Virtual Console in the first place). I think Nintendo should try to fix this, and offer to update the game if they can get it running. Giving up is not an option!

No fix coming for Mario Kart on Wii Virtual Console [Pro-G]

Bits Bytes Pixels and Sprites predicts the Super Bowl -- with a game of Tecmo Bowl. I don't want to make any claims as to the accuracy of their methods, but I would run down to Vegas and put all of your money on the Bears, right now.

We Know the Winner of Super Bowl XLI [BBP&S]

You know what? At first I was going to make fun of this Wii hack for doubling the thing's size while not really accomplishing that much, but the more I looked at it, the more I liked it. Putting GameCube controllers into the Wii is kind of a pain in the neck, since they're located on the top of the machine (or on the side, depending on how you orient it). And the Wii isn't the most stable of consoles, so you have to hold it in place while you insert or remove the pads. This serves as a handy stand while putting the ports in a more convenient place. And it's cleanly and elegantly done. With blue LEDs! And reversible. Good job!

CAG Modifies Wii For Easy GameCube Controller Access [Cheap Ass Gamer]

Can Microsoft get Xbox 360 turned around in Japan? Should the sales of games like Blue Dragon and Gears of War be seen as positive signs, or confirmation of failure? Gamasutra spoke to Japan industry observers John Ricciardi and Brian Ashcraft about the issue, and got two very different takes. Example:

Ricciardi: Microsoft's problems over here run deep--their situation isn't something that can be changed overnight or even in six months. The entire way they approach the Japanese market needs sweeping changes before any real progress can be made.

Brian Ashcraft: The excuse that there are no Japan-centric games went right out the window. The console went from being something you could play Halo on to something else entirely.

My take on the issue is that Ricciardi is right on and that Ashcraft is smoking crack. Well, maybe not crack, but if I were him I would seriously take those crates of Kool-Aid that Microsoft Japan ships him every month and have them inspected for signs of tampering. Remember, if the foil seal is broken, don't drink it!

Was Blue Dragon the Monster Microsoft Needed? [Gamasutra]

A Sony spokesperson in Japan has said that PlayStation 3 price cuts are not being ruled out. Well, duh. This is one of those news stories that sounds really critical at first, but then you realize that there's no actual information within:

"We may look at the price as part of our strategy to expand the market when the timing is right," [Senior Vice President Takao] Yuhara told reporters at Sony's Tokyo headquarters.

You might recall that every other video game system, ever, has seen price cuts.

Price Cuts Weighed in PS3 Game Console [AP]