Thursday Newspost for June 26, 2008
NeoGAF has new Final Fantasy: Dissidia screenshots. Or Dissidia: Final Fantasy. No one can agree on how it's formatted.
Keep 'em in their respective games and they're alright, but start mixing and matching them and.. boy, they look silly. Has Ultimecia always been Sephiroth with tits?
Industry and multi-console news
New media: 20 minutes of Far Cry 2 footage, Blood Bowl trailer -- basically Mutant League Football with more of a fantasy bent
- The 2009 Leipzig Games Convention is still on track despite a new rival event in Cologne.
- Gamasutra has an interview with Ubisoft on the rise of the Petz series.
- Super Robot Wars A Portable has pushed Metal Gear Solid 4 out of the top spot on the new Japanese sales chart.
- American McGee has an interview on his official blog with producer Scott Faye (currently working on the Max Payne movie) about the status of the Alice movie.
- Next Generation looks at the making of Carmageddon.
- Edge catches up with the people who got their start using the Net Yaroze (an official homebrew PS1 development kit) and talks about how it affected their careers.
- New York police claim that six teenagers were emulating GTA when they robbed a man at a supermarket.
- Opposable Thumbs has a list of the exhibitors at this year's PAX.
- A new Breath of Fire game is a possibility, if enough people want it.
- Sega of Europe is backing a fan venture to hold the first full Sonic the Hedgehog convention in London on August 9.
- MTV Multiplayer presents a a guide to video game comics.
- There's been another stabbing in Akihabara, but this one wasn't nearly as bad.
- BioShock programmer Chris Kline denies rumors that the BioShock team hates Ken Levine.
- Variety's Cut Scene blog asks, "am I the only one who think it's morally disturbing to make a game that celebrates COLONIZATION?"
- GameSetWatch looks at the future, or lack thereof, for new print gaming magazines, from the perspective of someone just laid off from the recently cancelled, short-lived entertainment magazine PiQ. "Going through the experience of launching and maintaining a brand-new, nerd-oriented print magazine in this modern era has taught me a great deal about how to survive in that marketplace. To be more exact, you can't. Forget about the return of GameFan or Next Generation or anything else you may've liked in the past -- the video-game realm will be lucky if it sees any sort of new magazine launch in America at any time in our lives."
PC and mobile news
New GameTap titles: Civilization IV: Warlords, Descent 3, American Deer Hunting
- Microsoft has written an open letter to PC gamers.
- The virtual world Habbo has reached 100 million avatars. And only 2 million of those are Genos.
- Blizzard has announced the Blizzard Authenticator, a keychain dongle intended to add extra security to World of Warcraft logins.
- Duke Nukem Forever isn't going to be at E3. Take a moment to recover from the shock.
- Speculation is certainly mounting that Diablo 3 will be announced at E3.
- An internal Microsoft e-mail from a few years back shows that even Bill Gates gets frustrated with Microsoft's usability. "So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist? So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated."
- Cliff Harris goes around testing the power usage of various computer components, just for the hell of it.
- Sign-ups are now open for the Jumpgate Evolution beta.
- Science Magazine reports on the experience of holding a scientific conference in World of Warcraft.
Nintendo news
- According to scans from the next issue of Nintendo Power, Mega Man 9 is coming to WiiWare.
- Guiness World Records: The Videogame has been announced for the Wii and DS. It'll be as exciting as watching your fingernails grow, because the game will actually involve watching your fingernails grow.
- Ubisoft has revealed a Prince of Persia title for the DS, subtitled The Fallen King.
- Marvelous Interactive has announced Arc Rise Fantasia for the Wii.
- The lawsuit against Nintendo over an old Gamecube ad that allegedly used music without permission has been dropped after Nintendo proved they did get permission after all.
- EA has announced Boogie SuperStar for the Wii, which will be targeted specifically at girls.
- A 13 year old boy hung himself after an argument with his parents about wanting to play his new Wii.
- EA has detailed the All Play branded sports games coming to the Wii.
- On Friday, Amazon will have a full day of Gold Box deals featuring "Nintendo icons."
Sony news
New content: Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds demo
- The PS3's video rental service is coming in summer. They've also announced an upcoming news service for the system somewhat like the Wii's News Channel.
- PS3 Cell processors have shifted to a 65nm process, and the RSX graphics chip will follow this fall.
- Dissidia: Final Fantasy is being released in Japan this year.
- Sacred 2: Fallen Angel is coming to the PS3 along with the 360 and PC.
- 1up has new details on the PS3 port of Eternal Sonata.
- Amazon's deal of the day is WTF: Work Time Fun for $9.99.
Microsoft news
New content: Top Spin 3 demo, Guitar Hero track
New media: Leaked Gears of War 2 beta footage, Street Fighter II HD gameplay footage, Otomedius Gorgeous trailer
- The Content License Transfer Tool is now available to help sort out your DRM issues. Joystiq has a Q&A with Marc Whitten on how it works.
- Pages for Schizoid and Soul Calibur have appeared on Xbox.com. This could be important, as the trend has been for pages to appear on the site immediately followed by the game being released to Live Arcade.
- Microsoft is bringing IGN Strategize to the Live Marketplace. Because, once again, you'd much rather watch video of people talking about tips and strategies than just look up a FAQ and then get on with your life.
- Denis Dyack has called upon Internet trolls to state their opinion on Too Human. If they post in a NeoGAF thread saying they're against the game and it turns out to be good, they get an "Owned by Too Human" name change. If the game turns out to be crap, Dyack's account gets an "Owned by GAF" name change. Congratulations on being a child, Denis Dyack!
- EGM's rumor column claims that Microsoft may allow other companies to produce 360s.
Comments
Ahahaha that Civ 4 article is the best thing ever. "Murder? War? Crime? No, the worst thing about video games is COLONIZATION! They're setting a poor political example for our children!"
Jesus H Bullshit, man.
Posted by: Kirbyoto | June 26, 2008 7:56 PM
I think one of the points he's making (and it's an even-handed take in the article--I honestly don't see what you find so hilarious) is that a lot of people don't seem to appreciate the destructive, exploitative urges often euphemized by colonization. And he's right, judging from your reaction.
Posted by: Sarchasm | June 26, 2008 9:23 PM
Games in general are based on acquisition and no-holds-barred ruthlessness. There are so many worse things that get done on a regular basis in video games that it's just plain ridiculous to single out something as foreign to the average person as "colonization". You might as well talk about how grinding in MMORPGs encourages the war economy, or the fact that there's only one player who controls every aspect of society in Civ 4 encourages fascism, or the fact that the same player controls domestic and military affairs is a boosting of the military-industrial complex.
Posted by: Kirbyoto | June 27, 2008 2:40 AM
Those arguments are all very abstracted, though. This is a sensitive historical event that has a lot of people upset and has been gleefully whitewashed from several generations of American history. Rewarding players for recreating the colonization of the New World (which was pretty no-holds-barred and ruthless to begin with, your playing habits be damned) is a little insensitive. If you can't see how this is worse than anything you can accomplish in GTA, then I really don't know how to make the argument stick.
Posted by: Sarchasm | June 27, 2008 8:34 AM
Look, history is full of bad things. That's pretty much the definition of history. People play as Germans in WW2 games without supporting the Nazi party; people play as criminals in GTA games without actually committing crimes (usually); people play as guys who launch nuclear weapons haphazardly in RTS games like World in Conflict or Rise of Nations. "Colonization" is the short end of the stick as far as "Terrible things you can do in a video game" go.
Posted by: Kirbyoto | June 27, 2008 1:36 PM
We'll just have to disagree on this one.
Posted by: Sarchasm | June 27, 2008 5:06 PM