It just keeps getting weirder: Now possible presidential candidate Mark Warner is going to be interviewed within the virtual world of Second Life. Just to provide the proper context for this event, this is the kind of world he's entering into. Caution: Article is not work safe and may make you ill.

• A demo of Far Cry Instincts Predator is now available on the Xbox Live Marketplace.
• Ubisoft finally admits what we've known for months: Assassin's Creed will not be a PS3 exclusive.
• First EA had to recall NCAA Football 07, now this: Quarterbacks in the European version of Madden have been spotted throwing in the wrong direction.
• The makers of Call of Duty: Finest Hour announce an alternate-reality WWII shooter called Fall of Liberty, in which Nazis invade America.
• A shortage of Blu-ray diodes could cut PS3 shipments in half.
• The Xbox Live Marketplace has reached 50 million downloads.
• Are these the first images of the PS3 and Wii demo kiosks? Maybe?
• First images of Sim City 3000 on the DS.
• TimeShift has been delayed until 2007.
• Fight Night 3's PS3 version will include a first person mode.
• Valve has released a new trailer for Half Life 2: Episode 2.
• EA games will soon be covered in in-game advertising.
• Modified Xboxes are being used for stroke rehabilitation.
• Upwards of ten major members have left the Duke Nukem Forever team. Boy, I hope there's not some sort of problem with the game's development.

Posted by Will at 4:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

To help keep you from wondering what you just spent $600 on come PS3 launch day, Fox has lined up eight movies to be released on the Blu-ray format in November.

Fox's stellar, action-packed line-up of initial BD releases includes: BEHIND ENEMY LINES, FANTASTIC FOUR, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN (Director's Cut), KISS OF THE DRAGON, THE OMEN (666), THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, SPEED and THE TRANSPORTER. This first wave of BD titles will arrive at retail outlets worldwide in November. Japan launches November 10 and product hits North American (SRP US$39.98/CAN$49.98), Australian and European stores on November 14.

Allow me to present a summary of the list for those skimming: ahahahahahahahahahaha

Lord knows I often thought to myself "This DVD just isn't enough. I need at least 50 gigabytes of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in order to fully appreciate its majesty. I'll even pay twice as much as normal for it!" Why would they not immediately go for their big guns for the first titles on a new format? You think bloody Fantastic Four is going to be what tips the scales in convincing someone to buy into Blu-ray?

The descriptions for the disc contents are interesting, if a little excessive (does anyone need 72 different ways to search through League's scenes, including sorting by actor and by location?), but the films they've applied them to are mostly crap. Speed was good though, at least as I recall it from ten years ago.

Posted by Will at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Wired has an article looking at the reasoning behind Dead Rising's controversial save system. Controversial in this case means "a lot of people whine about it." A lot of people in this case means "people who have been spoiled on 'save anywhere' systems."

Dead Rising's save system is bound to frustrate you a little bit, sure. My main problem with it was not being able to make a second save in case it turned out I saved too close to a deadline, but that's more a complaint with the inconsistent scheduling (sometimes you just have to get to an event before the deadline, sometimes you have to get there and fight a boss before time's up) than with the method of saving.

It seems like gamers are getting a greater and greater sense of entitlement with regards to every aspect of their games. Not only was Dead Rising criticized for the save system, but also for the timed element that limited how much exploration you could do. Elsewhere, gamers have bitched about certain games not allowing custom soundtracks when the developers feel it would spoil the atmosphere. Apparently they want every game to be a box of tinkertoys thrown at them with which they can do whatever the hell they want. That certainly works for some games, but not all.

As horrible and freedom-infringing as it sounds, developers sometimes need to have control over your experience. It's not just in video games; movie directors control what you see and when you see it, amusement park rides control where you go and what you can do. Sometimes it's for technical or logistical reasons, but other times it's because that's how you go about crafting a particular experience for people. If you want to achieve a particular effect, you have to be able to set at least a few of the variables that lead to that effect. I figured people understood this -- what else would account for the game that introduced the world to "save ribbons" going on to sell millions of copies and spawn a whole franchise. If you want a game that presents you with a basic skill test in which you can start and stop at any time with no penalty and enforces no rules as to what you can or can't do, go play Whack-A-Mole. I'm not going to pull the craggy old gamer card and say "In MY day we didn't save at all!", but seriously. Eight year olds were able to make it through Ninja Gaiden in one go, I think you can manage to get from one save point to the next.

(And returning specifically to the game in question: there was a save point in every section of the mall. If you had to backtrack for 20 minutes of work after you died, you weren't doing it right.)

Posted by Will at 1:38 PM | Permalink

Tecmo says it plans to "agressively support" the Wii's Virtual Console. They haven't said what games they plan to bring to the service, but the natural choices would seem to be Tecmo Super Bowl and Ninja Gaiden.

• A port of Sim City 3000 is coming to the DS.
• Dead Rising shipped over 500,000 units in its first two weeks.
• A brief history of id Software.
• The next Oblivion download will be Spell Tomes, for $.99.
• PSM claims Sony is prepping an upgraded PSP for next year, including built-in flash memory.
• Even post-patch, Street Fighter II is still having problems.
• The CEO of Crytek says that behemoth PC game Crysis is not possible on consoles.
• Now that the summer lull is over, Firing Squad has a guide to what games you can expect this fall.
• Nintendo is sending off invites to their "Wii Ambassadors", regular folks (with lots of friends) who will hold secret Wii parties in anticipation of the system's release.
• Blue Dragon is still on track for 2006, just in case you thought it had disappeared.
• The AVS Forum has an extensive guide for people getting the Red Rings of Death on their 360s, including what the various codes mean.
• If you've been searching high and low for an artist who does nothing but turn male video game stars into chicks, then buster, today's your lucky day.
• Parker Associates suggests six different categories of gamers. Which one are you? It's like an Internet personality quiz, except sponsored by a major market research firm.

Posted by Will at 3:10 PM | Permalink

A report on a Chinese website has sent everyone into a tizzy this morning. It claims the Wii remote has hit a production snag, as they're supposedly having quality assurance issues.

On Nintendo’s Wii side, there are many rumours recently that said Wii may launch earlier than expected in late Oct, in order to suppress PS3 that launches in mid-Nov, but in fact Nintendo may not have a confirmed official launch day, due to all sorts of problems related to the controller that prevented mass production.

The factory has received Wii controller’s purchasing order and its sample, but is still stucked in testing phrase. From feedbacks of testers, currently the Wiimote and nunchuck still have a lot of small issues, such as buttons aren’t sensitive, hard to press 2 buttons together, and even no response occasionally, and the current sample is easy to get damaged, using the controller in normal situation will produce some noise, etc. Entering Sept, if the above hardware problems cannot be fixed, it will directly affect Wii’s selling strategy.

Take this however you will, preferably with a big grain of salt. The article starts off by saying the guy went to the factory to interview someone about PSP production, and it just so happened the Wii remote is also made there, so they talked about that too. Competitors sharing production facilities seems really odd to me, but admittedly, I don't know anything about manufacturing.

There are a lot of question marks surrounding the story (including the source itself, as it's hard to find somebody who knows whether the site is at all reliable), so keep it in the rumor column and don't start weeping and tearing your clothes just yet.

Posted by Will at 2:13 PM | Permalink

Kikizo claims to have the PS3's final ad slogan, for Europe at least, revealed at Leipzig. The motto? "This Is Living." ...Yeah.

The seductive, ludicrously shiny black casing of PS3, marked with the iconic lettering of the PS3 logo, disintegrates into a thousand pieces before re-forming into a bold, bubbly font spelling the words This is Living, a logo in itself which beats like a heart twice 'up-close' and then twice 'distant' (repeat)...

I find it a little odd that, if this is the final marketing slogan, none of the few billion media outlets at LGC noticed it. So there's still a question of whether this is truly what they're going with. I can only hope for Sony's sake that it isn't, because it sounds like the tagline for a commercial selling adult diapers.

Posted by Will at 1:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

An autoupdate is out for Street Fighter II on Xbox Live, addressing connection and time out issues, as well as clearing the leaderboard due to cheaters.

• Major Nelson has a backwards compatibility update list for August. As usual, it's not exactly packed with blockbusters.
• The Call of Juarez multiplayer demo is out.
• YouTube has a nine minute video of Madden 07 being demonstrated on the Wii.
• Australia's ratings board has given an M to Bully, suggesting it may not be as horrifically violent as protesters would like you to believe.
• EA has announced Burnout 5 for the 360 and PS3 for sometime in 2007.
• Prices for Microsoft's Vista have been confirmed, ranging from $180 for an upgrade to $450 for the Ultimate package.
• A brief history of Rare.
• The Battlestar Galactica catch-up episode has hit Xbox Live early.
• The 360's soccer games might not be so exclusive after all.
• Just in case you were ever curious as to what the Penny Arcade wives are like, there's this.
• How often do you get to see an Ebay auction with the title "SEGA CREEPY CAT ROBOT"?
• An extremely in-depth look at what modern tactical games get right and wrong in comparison to real world combat.
• The only official Samus Aran action figure released to the public. She looks kind of.. squat.
• An exploit has been discovered for 2.0 through 2.8 PSP firmware.
• Red Steel will have no load times thanks to data streaming.
• Game Videos has footage of FF5 on the DS running at this year's PAX.

Posted by Will at 4:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

It's funny. Violent video games have never given me the urge to inflict pain on my fellow man, but these Bully protesters expressing their concerns about the game by chanting "This game is bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!" (a la Gwen Stefani's Hollaback Girl, in case you don't listen to the radio), is enough to send me into a murderous rage.

You can bear witness to the horror yourself here.

• Microsoft is working on a patch for Texas Hold 'Em's issues.
• Scarface is set to hit the Xbox, PS2 and PC on October 8.
• A brief history of LucasArts.
• Penny Arcade is sponsoring a $10,000 scholarship for the next would-be game designer.
• Cannon Fodder is coming to the PSP in spring of 2007.
• Chet and Erik from Old Man Murray are back together, writing for Valve's upcoming game Portal.
• Nintendo's head of localization says he expects a T Rating for Twilight Princess.
• A demo for Madden NFL 07 has hit Xbox Live.
• Yet more evidence that Assassin's Creed is coming to the 360. Why won't they announce it already?
• In a surprise move, Megaman ZX for the DS will not get an English dub; they'll keep the Japanese voices and add subtitles.
• Americans can now get a subscription to UK gaming mag Edge, if you don't mind paying $75 a year.
• Some people just get way too upset over little things like changing Sonic's voice actor. Come on, none of them have ever been good.
• Matt from IGN says Wavebird receivers will "fit fine" in the Wii's GC controller ports.
• Forget mothers trying to balance a career and kids; the real trick is balancing kids and cosplay. I don't think that husband is nearly as enthusiastic as he should be.

Posted by Will at 3:32 PM | Permalink

On Thursday, an employee at a major publisher who wished to remain anonymous wrote in to Game Daily, claiming that 360 failure rates were more like 45 or 50%, and that the recently released Dead Rising was stressing machines by using more cores and thus generating more heat, causing more systems to fail. Microsoft has now responded, first by sussing out that the employee works for EA. I don't know how they did that, but usually when someone finds out where an anonymous source works, that person ends up in a ditch. At least, that's what TV tells me.

Responding to this employee's letter, a Microsoft representative told GameDaily BIZ, "We can confirm that the letter was neither endorsed nor approved by Electronic Arts. At this point we have no reason to believe that the claims made in the letter are based on factual data as opposed to being just an individual opinion."

The rep continued, addressing the 30-50% claim, "We can't speak directly to the situation at EA and the conditions of use of each one of our consoles and would encourage you to contact them directly. What we can tell you is that the vast majority of Xbox 360 owners are having an outstanding experience with their new systems. Each incident is unique and these customer inquires are being handled on a case-by-case basis. We have not seen anything out of the ordinary in the current return situation that we experience."

MS doesn't seem to have said anything specifically about Dead Rising, but the Game Daily article does point to other people having problems, such as one of the writers at Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog, who had to get his system replaced. It seems like Dead Rising does indeed tax the 360 more than other games, and it may be exposing pre-existing flaws in systems that hadn't yet run hot enough to fail. You might even want to rent the game or at least play the demo as a kind of test for your system, especially if you got your console at launch. Of course, you should have the game anyway, because it's awesome.

Posted by Will at 2:15 PM | Permalink

Remember all those weeks when I would say nothing was coming out because of the summer drought? Yeah, that's kind of over.

• Star Fox Command (DS) - The latest installment of the Star Fox franchise injects a little strategy into the proceedings. $34.99 at EB Games.
• American McGee Presents: Bad Day LA (PC, Xbox) - A kind of GTA satire from the maker of Alice. $29.99 at EB Games for the PC; the Xbox version isn't listed.
• Saints Row (360) - A GTA-type featuring gangs and thugs. Genius! $59.99 at EB Games.
• Enchanted Arms (360) - Notable mostly for being the first Japanese RPG to hit the 360, if you're getting a little tired of guns and cars. $59.99 at EB Games.
• Def Jam: Fight for NY: The Takeover. (PSP) - A "hip hop brawler" featuring celebrities like Busta Rhymes and Carmen Electra. Get it before it's taken off the shelves by the Colon Police. $39.99 at EB Games.
• Dance Factory (PS2) - A DDR clone with a difference: You can use any music CD you want, and the game will choreograph moves based the songs you choose. $39.99 at EB Games.
• Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories (PS2) - The sleeper strategy RPG hit is back to drain away another 100 hours of your life that could have been used productively. $49.99 at EB Games.
• Ultimate Ghosts 'n' Goblins (PSP) - A PSP edition of the classic sidescroller that looks absolutely gorgeous. $39.99 at EB Games.

God dammit why don't you people space this stuff out over the course of the summer. I've covered the big ones here, but just in case what you were really interested in this week was 50 Cent: Bulletproof G Unit Edition or Luxor Mahjong, the full release list is here.

Posted by Will at 1:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you're in your 20s or older, chances are you had a run-in with a virtual reality machine at least once back in the '90s. My local mall had an entire store that sold nothing but holograms and Magic Eye posters, so adding a VR machine was the natural progression if they wanted to remain on top of the futuristic crap market. The units were placed right at the front of the store where nobody could miss them, and sure enough, there was always a crowd gathered around to watch someone plunk down five bucks for a few minutes of confused stumbling about in Dactyl Nightmare. In fact, that's one of the reasons I never gave it a shot. I'd never be able to stand everyone watching me.

Virtual reality was really exciting to everyone for a year or two until people started to realize that it wasn't very good. It was a slow, clunky, notably lo-fi experience, and once you got over the initial amazement about walking around in a sparse virtual world constructed of basic geometric shapes, you remembered that you have no desire to visit a sparse world of basic geometric shapes, virtual or not. It wasn't all blue skies on the other end of the business, either: After the initial novelty rush, stores were left with bulky, expensive machinery that took up a good portion of their floor space and required extremely costly specialized maintenance. In the end, all parties decided at once that this wasn't such a good idea, and VR machines quietly disappeared from the world. Sure, there were some left in a few huge arcades and in military training, but that's not exactly the worldwide phenomenon VR was supposed to be.

The following article was taken from the October 1993 issue of Game Players, when the virtual world was still new and unexplored, and everything seemed possible. Well, except for The Lawnmower Man game being worth playing. I don't know if we were ever that gullible.

Posted by Will at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

You knew it was coming. Microsoft has announced the first Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged collection, a disc containing full versions of Geometry Wars Evolved, Wik: Fable of Souls, Outpost Kaloki X, Bejewled 2 Deluxe, Hardwood Backgammon and Texas Hold 'Em that will retail for $39.99.

• Half Life 2: Episode Two has been pushed back to Q1 2007.
• Penny Arcade is getting its own video game, coming to PC, Mac and Linux, followed later by console versions.
• The PSP edition of Disgea is set for a November 30 launch in Japan.
• Nintendo isn't allowing any third party Wii games to go online until 2007.
• A brief history of Electronic Arts.
• About.com responds to Dr. Thompson's response to the whole 62% violent Pac-Man thing.
• If you ever wanted to watch Japanese pop singer Utada Hikaru go up against 30 people in Tetris DS -- and really, who hasn't -- then here's your chance. She must've been doing a lot of singing lately, because her voice is busted.
• Hope you got in while it was free, because apparently Texas Hold 'Em has serious problems.
• "My wife's Nintendo apron." Your wife kinda looks like she's about to whip someone.
• EA is offering free replacements on bugged NCAA 07 PSP games.
• Fatal Fury Special is coming to Xbox Live Arcade.
• EVE Online players are dealing with the aftermath of a scam worth 700 billion ISK. The developers refuse to intervene, as dealing with liars and cheaters is just a part of the game.
• Apparently you can make children cry if you offer a PSP when they're expecting a DS.
• 2old2play takes a close look at Microsoft's Zune player, and how it stacks up against the iPod.

Posted by Will at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

While at the Leipzig Game Conference, Microsoft's Major Nelson dropped this little tidbit about a previously unknown feature of the upcoming Xbox Live Camera.

"When you press the trigger button, it makes the controller of the person you're talking to vibrate," said Nelson. "So two people... well, I'll let you fill in the blanks!"

Now come on. Even the Rez Trance Vibrator at least had some pretense of having a legitimate use. This is just blatant. What purpose could this possibly serve except for what you're supposed to be filling in the blanks? We already knew we'd have people dangling their junk in front of the camera from day one, but I never knew it'd be interactive.

It's odd because companies are usually very careful to officially say "that's not the product's intended use" whenever any "added benefit" is discovered by users, from using game controllers as vibrators to using Preparation H to reduce undereye puffiness. Microsoft, however, seems to be embracing it. But it also seems like they're setting themselves up for real trouble when the obnoxious underage cam whore set goes from sending old men pictures of their boobs to allowing people to remotely pleasure them. Can you statutorially rape someone over the Internet?

Posted by Will at 3:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Capcom acknowledges of the possibility that Lost Planet may not stay a 360 exclusive. Exclusivity doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot to Capcom (see RE5, Killer 7, Viewtiful Joe, any other damn thing they've ever made).

• Advancing past a certain point in Lumines Live's Mission and VS. CPU modes is going to cost you extra.
• The demo for Just Cause hits PCs and 360s today.
• Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne and Alhambra have been announced for Xbox Live Arcade.
• Nintendo announces Learn English on the DS, software that teaches how to write in the English language. Not for release in America, natch.
• Microsoft announces prices and dates for the Xbox camera, racing wheel, wireless headset and Windows gaming reciever, the latter allowing you to use wireless 360 devices on your PC.
• PS3s will be capable of taking part in the Folding@Home project.
• Native American protests get a Old West themed game pulled from its site. It was just a student project anyway.
• Friends and family members of the Blizzard team are currently alpha testing Burning Crusade.
• A brief history of Activision.
• Time Splitters developer Free Radical and LucasArts are working together on a new game.
• Photos from the crowds of gamers gathered in Japan as early as 3 AM for the release of Final Fantasy III.
• For the next 12 hours, you can bid on a custom painted Dead Rising 360 faceplate.
• North America will be getting onyx and coral pink DS Lites in September.
• Another Bully trailer is online.
• Some guy gets his mom to make a wall hanging based on a stained-glass image of Link from Wind Waker.

Posted by Will at 4:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Y'know, I never really had anything against Dell. I mean, I didn't love them, and that "dude" kid was annoying, but I remained fairly ambivalent. Apparently they weren't happy with that, and now they're actively trying to irritate me.

The latest ad campaign for their XPS line of high-end gamer computers features the url www.dell.com/ftw and the tagline "Build your ultimate gaming machine and crush all who stand before you. Dell XPS 700 -- for the win!"

Ugh. It makes you feel dirty just reading it. It just seems like a massive branding misstep for them. In one sentence, the XPS line has gone from a somewhat more corporate Alienware to a bunch of 60 year old men with those deep lines around their necks from where the fat and loose skin bulges out over the collars of their starched dress shirts, sitting around a conference table throwing around ideas on how to "rap" with the kids these days, with a whiteboard behind them reading like:

XPS IDEAS

XPS is keen
XPS is gnarly
XPS is the bee's knees
(picture of XPS computer jumping a skateboard over buses)
(images of entries from XPS' diary wherein it is clear it disrespects its parents)
XPS ftw!
XPS: ptkfgs

One wonders if Dell knows that half the time ftw is used online, it's said ironically. I swear to God if the next ad involves someone saying "I hear the XPS 700 is a good machine" and an owl turns around and says "o rly?", I'm going to shoot someone. Possibly myself.

Posted by Will at 3:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)