Yeah, it's not coming back. Not unless someone plans on paying me for it, anyway. I simply don't have the time to spend 20+ hours a week on newsposts in addition to my real job. Sorry.

Posted by Will at 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (57)

Will return next week.

Maybe.

Posted by Will at 1:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (20)

In this scene from the thrilling climax to the Max Payne movie, Max faces off against his deadliest foe yet: a small plot of dirt in a railyard just outside Renovo, Pennsylvania.

Industry and multi-console news

• Former Sony Europe CEO Chris Deering claims only 3 in 10 games recoup their development cost.
• Analyst Michael Pachter says the Warner Music exec complaining about low license fees for music game tracks is missing the point. "His flip comment disregards that the songs downloaded on Guitar Hero are not songs--they are videogame files with an embedded sound track. The value of the music is near zero without the game file, and nobody downloads Guitar Hero content to play on their iPod."
• The collector's edition of Red Alert 3 will include, among other things, a "beta key to a future C&C game." The question is, what game?
• The NPD Group has released a report on gamer demographics. It features useful trivia for your next cocktail party, such as PS3 owners being more likely than Wii or 360 owners to have a second next-gen system.
• Eternity's Child creator Luc Bernard is giving up on making games. He's still supporting Eternity's Child on the PC, and the WiiWare version will still be released, but won't be releasing any future projects as games.
• BlizzCon 2008 tickets are now on sale.
• The OFLC's website confirms that a modified version of Fallout 3 is cleared for release in Australia.
• Gamasutra has an interview with Simon Jeffery on the evolution of Sega. He mentions that Yu Suzuki is no longer a Sega employee -- "He's kind of his own man right now."
• Frontier’s David Braben says console versions of Elite 4 are being considered.
• An online poll at What They Play finds respondents more concerned about their kids playing GTA than watching porn. Then again, a separate poll on the site found that people were more offended by sex (and gay men kissing) than severed heads in video games, so maybe the more important point is that online polls are crap.
• Edios has a new Lara Croft model to tour around and show up at events. It seems like they have a new one every few weeks.
• Midway Austin has laid off 90 employees and canceled a game in production called Criminal.

PC and mobile news

New media: Crysis Warhead screenshots

• Eurogamer has an interview with Will Wright about Spore, militant atheists, and the failure of the Sims Online.
• Gamespot has a Q&A on Star Trek Online.
• Game Power 7 plans to publish what they are calling the first 3D MMORPG for the Middle East and North Africa region.
• The first episode of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People is now available through Telltale Games' website.
• 300,000 units of Super Monkey Ball for the iPhone have sold through in 20 days. Quoth Sega of America president Simon Jeffery: "That's a substantial business. It gives iPhone a justifiable claim to being a viable gaming platform."
• IGN lists the best PC games left to come in 2008.
• Warhammer Online and Paul Barnett briefly showed up on the Tonight Show for some reason.

Nintendo news

New WiiWare title: Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People
New Virtual Console titles: Break In, Star Parodier
New media: Mushroom Men featurette on the game's music

• Microsoft has disputed Nintendo's claims about third party sales on the Wii.

Sony news

• Adjustable difficulty settings are coming to PixelJunk Monsters and Eden.
• The official Playstation blog has details on Warhawk's v1.5 update, tentatively scheduled for August 27.
• Sony is discontinuing sales of the PSP extended battery kit. GamePro interprets this as an indication consumers are happy with the system's battery life, which may be a bit of an assumption. Personally, I didn't know the thing existed, but then I never use my PSP in the first place.
• Konami has launched a Metal Gear Solid 4 Beginner Site in Japan to help newbies get better acquainted with the game.
• Amazon's deal of the day is GRID for $39.99.

Microsoft news

• This week's Live Arcade titles are Bionic Commando Rearmed and Fable II's Pub Games.
• The achievements for Fable 2 have been revealed.
• Jonathan Blow may not need to worry about the pricing on Braid, as it's projected to see first week sales of over 20,000.
• MTV Multiplayer talks to the creators of Geometry Wars 2 about fixing the problems of the original game, the design of certain game modes, and what's in store for the future.
• Apparently the freezing issues with Ninja Gaiden II are still going on, but Microsoft and Tecmo are working on it.

Posted by Will at 6:06 PM | Permalink

• Madden NFL 09 (360, PS3, PS2, PSP, Xbox, DS) - Based on that new "footed ball" sport the kids seem to be into. Very likely the last major publisher release to come out for the original Xbox. $59.99 on the 360 and PS3, $39.99 on the PSP, PS2 and Xbox, $29.99 on the DS.
• Madden NFL 09 All Play (Wii) - Like regular Madden, but for Grandma. $49.99 at Amazon.
• Bangai-O Spirits (DS) - A 2D shooter from Treasure that features a level editor and a method for sharing levels via the DS microphone. $29.99 at Amazon.

Are you ready for some football? You'd better be, because that's all you're getting. That and Imagine Teacher. The full release list is at Gamasutra, but keep in mind they seem a bit off their game today. Near as I can tell, Line Rider 2, N+ and Mazes of Fate are not coming out this week, despite being on their list.

Posted by Will at 2:36 PM | Permalink

Atlus PS2 RPGs Odin Sphere and Disgaea have been added to the Greatest Hits line, meaning both can now be had for $20. I seriously doubt either actually sold a million copies or whatever the qualifying amount used to be, so the Greatest Hits designation is now more of a recommendation than a mark of accomplishment in sales. Not that that's a bad thing -- that's the only way Final Fantasy Tactics got reissued on the PSX.

However, speaking as someone who happens to be slogging through Odin Sphere at this very moment, here's some advice: Skip it.

Industry and multi-console news

New media: Rise of the Argonauts trailer, Call of Duty: World at War co-op trailer, Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI screenshots and trailer

• Godfather II is set to ship in February.
• Edge runs down a list of this year's biggest shooters.
• GameSetWatch looks at the problem of separating players and protagonists. How do you accomplish tragedy in game stories when the player has a vested interest in seeing the protagonist succeed?
• It sounds like Narrows Plaza Bowling in Tacoma is getting a Street Fighter IV cabinet.
• EGM has revealed new Bayonetta details.
• Words on Play is assembling a list of "secret" books on game design. "Books that are not explicitly written about games, but which any game designer who reads them just knows that they are really about games."
• Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe is a big Guitar Hero fan, describing himself as "one of the top 100 Guitar Hero players in the world."

PC and mobile news

New content: Gary Grigsby's War Between The States 1.020 patch
New media: Star Trek Online debut trailer

• The former team members of Flagship Studios have reassembled as Runic Games.
• Bionic Commando Rearmed will be $15 on the PC as opposed to $10 on consoles, but Capcom says it has nothing to do with piracy. "It has to do with different business terms/expectations in that sector and more importantly, generally prevailing pricing of PC digital games versus their console counterparts."
• Vehicle combat is coming to Star Wars Galaxies.
• Indie developer Cliff Harris wants to hear from pirates about why they pirate his games. "I want to improve my business, and ensure I stay afloat, and to do that, it would be mad to sit in the corner and ignore the opinions of that section of the public who pirate my games."
• The Warhammer Online team reportedly developed 250 classes before settling on 20.
• An Age of Conan GM was let go after being caught having cybersex on the job.
• Epic's Mike Capps says lower scores for Gears of War on the PC are "bullshit."

Nintendo news

New media: Rhapsody trailer

• You might have heard about Tenchu 4 coming to the Wii and wondered why anyone is bothering to keep that series going. That's because you haven't yet seen the STEALTH CAT GAMEPLAY.
• Microsoft claims that research shows 60% of Wii Fit owners use it once and then never again.
• Nintendo has offered up an NPD sales chart to show that third party games do sell on the Wii.
• Nintendo has told Shigeru Miyamoto to stop discussing his hobbies with the press because they're often clues to his next project.
• The limited edition Palkia/Dialga DS that Japan got a couple years ago will be arriving in American GameStops soon.
• Famitsu has revealed some Captain Rainbow details.

Sony news

New media: Infamous gameplay footage

• The list of trophies for Rock Band 2 has been released already.
• A modder has managed to add a touchscreen to the PSP.
• God of War 2 is banned in Saudi Arabia, but you can get it anyway through the right channels.
• Sony has launched the official LittleBigPlanet news and information site.

Microsoft news

• Fable II Pub Games will be coming to Live Arcade this week.
• Overhead shooter Shred Nebula is coming to XBLA September 3.
• 30 of Viva Pinata 2's achievements are up for perusal. Some of them make reference to four-player co-op, which may be new information.
• iXboxLive is an app that gives you access to your Xbox Live friends list on your iPhone or iPod Touch.
• A new video has appeared on YouTube showing the game installation process through the 360's new dashboard.

Posted by Will at 9:58 PM | Permalink

A montage of bad NES video game endings. I think it's clear Ghoul School does not belong in here.

Portal Challenge 14 done in three seconds. The video is played in slow motion to give you a chance to see how it's being done, and even with that you might have to watch a couple times.

On that subject, someone has recreated the Mirror's Edge E3 demo in Portal.

Despite how goofy it is, you might not want to watch this if you're the sensitive sort. This is a scene from the PC title Harvester in which -- hell, I've never played Harvester, I have no idea what's going on here. You can read a little more about it and see more videos here.

A short film about Team Fortress 2's red team coping with the loss of their jobs.

Possibly only interesting to me, but I'd always wondered what the 64DD SimCity title looked like.

In case you don't feel like doing them all yourself, GameVideos has posted a montage of all the critical finishes from Soul Calibur IV.

Everyone complained that this year's E3 sucked. I guess this is more what they were looking for? This is footage from Nintendo's 1995 E3 booth, promoting Killer Instinct via choreographed dancing from what appear to be the Bellarians from Space Mutiny, set to that cheesy Way U Move song from the Killer Cuts CD.

Edit: Once again I've managed to get embed code that doesn't work properly; just watch it here instead.

Posted by Will at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I came across two separate posts on two different news sites today that misrepresented and misquoted the story they were reporting on. I can't help but feel something's a bit backwards here when I'm having to fact-check these people after they've posted their news.

Maybe I should give up this racket and become an editor. At least then I could smoke a lot and yell at people like J Jonah Jameson.

Industry and multi-console news

New media: Midnight Club Los Angeles trailer

• A computer has beaten an 8-dan professional Go player in a 9-stone handicap game. This is a major achievement, despite the handicap, as Go has been an extremely difficult game to get computers to play well at all.
• Eidos says they've got ideas for user-generated content, but "we're not quite ready to talk about them just yet."
• John Carmack, who's getting quoted a lot all the sudden, says id no longer makes decisions around PCs. "The ground truth is just that the sales numbers on the PC are not what they used to be and are not what they are on the consoles."
• Next week's Rock Band tracks make up a six-song Roadrunner pack.
• Seven new tracks have been confirmed for Guitar Hero World Tour. In addition, there's a rumor about three Tool songs appearing in the game.
• Three teenagers arrested for firebombing cars in Atlanta claim GTA taught them how to make Molotov cocktails. I think just seeing what one looks like gives you a pretty good handle on how they work.
• 300 composer Tyler Bates will be providing the score for Rise of the Argonauts.
• The company making the MotionPlus accessory for the Wii says their relationship with Nintendo is not exclusive. You see, Mario and I have this understanding...
• Brenda Brathwaite is tired of hearing about "women in games." Me too. "I don't think about my gender any more than you probably do yours, unless someone brings it to my attention. In my case, that happens once or twice a month, and it's only when a reporter emails me to ask if I have any contributions to a particular piece."
• Author Warren Ellis says he did some work on Dead Space. Specifically: "I wrote a bunch of the groundwork, backstory and structure."
• Gamasutra presents part one of their feature on the state of game journalism.
• Cab drivers in Spain want GTA pulled from the market in the wake of the Thai taxi driver murder.
• 1up has a feature on Virtual Jihadi, the video game/art piece that caused some controversy earlier this year.
• The DS and PSP versions of N+ have been pushed back to August 26. However, they'll now both be only $20.
• A sequel to Divine Divinity called Divinity 2: Ergo Draconis is coming to the PC and 360.
• Wondering who won at the G-Phoria awards? Yeah, me neither.

PC and mobile news

• Far Cry 2's system requirements have been announced.
• Dynasty Warriors 6 is coming to the PC.

Nintendo news

New PAL Virtual Console titles: Pitstop II, Ecco: The Tides of Time, Splatterhouse 2, Samurai Shodown 2
New media: Dead Rising screenshots, Captain Rainbow trailer with English subtitles

• Nintendo will be showing off Mario Super Sluggers at the 2008 Cal Ripken World Series August 8 through 16.
• BioWare has described a possible DS Mass Effect title as "an awesome way to keep interest alive and keep it going in addition to to the next one [Mass Effect 2]."
• Capcom provides details on Dead Rising: Chop Til You Drop's Wii controls.
• To confront claims that the Wii doesn't have much interesting on the horizon, GamePro presents 21 Upcoming Wii Games To Drool Over. "#21: Wii Music." Awesome start!
• Meanwhile, That Video Game Blog lists several MIA Wii games.
• EA has announced Celebrity Sports Showdown for the Wii. Soon you too will be able to pit Fergie against Nelly Furtado in badminton.
• PC World has a look inside the guts of the Famicom as well as the Disk System add-on.

Sony news

New PSP title: Talkman Travel
New content: Snakeball team mode, NASCAR 09 Montreal track and skin packs, Guitar Hero III tracks, Rock Band tracks

• Sony believes that LittleBigPlanet will be a system seller.
• Sony is expanding the Home beta to Europe. They will be contacting "consumers who have been most active on PlayStation Network and PlayStation Store" to take part.
• The official Playstation blog has details on Pain trophies.
• Psyonix has announced Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars for PSN.
• Play-Asia has added a listing in their store for a Greatest Hits version of Okami.

Microsoft news

• Street Fighter II HD has been patched.
• The collector's edition of Fable II contains an in-game medieval Master Chief.
• Realtime Worlds says the possibility is still there for a sequel to Crackdown.
• John Carmack explains just how and where Rage will look worse on the 360 than on the PS3.
• Braid creator Jonathan Blow says "unnecessary" requirements for Live Arcade games hurt game quality. "I put in a tremendous amount of work meeting all these requirements, when I could have put that work into the actual game, and made it even a little more polished, little bit better." He also admits positives about working with Microsoft, however, including how they bent some rules for him: "For example, the way in which you can launch Braid and be directly in the game -- that is technically illegal if you go by the book, but they saw what I was trying to do and went with it."
• Denis Dyack says Too Human can last 50 to 80 hours if you want to get to level 50. But your first playthrough will be "around 15 hours."
• Rare has released the first Viva Pinata Vision Card.
• The Gears of War 2 Amazon-exclusive Lancer is now available for pre-order.

Posted by Will at 6:36 PM | Permalink

This is why government offices have monitor walls. Don't buy that "oh we need all these screens to keep track of important terrorist information" business.

Industry and multi-console news

New media: Damnation screenshots and trailer

• The Madden Curse is so strong it's struck itself, as the cover of Madden NFL 09 will have Brett Favre in a Packers uniform despite the fact that he just got traded to the Jets. EA says they will issue a patch prior to release that puts Favre on the right team, and you'll be able to print out an alternate cover from EA's website if you're really anal.
• Travelers Tales is already working on new Lego titles based on Warner IP.
• EA plans to make games based on the ..For Dummies books for the PC and DS, including titles like Solitaire for Dummies and Brain Training for Dummies. Same casual crap, different name.
• Phantasy Star Universe tops the list on the new Japanese sales chart.
• 1up has some details on Godfather II's strategy elements.
• Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman isn't happy with the "paltry" license fee for music for video games. "I think the [games] industry as a whole needs to take a very different look at this business and participate more fully and in a much more partnership way. And if that does not become the case, as far as Warner Music is concerned, we will not license to those games."
• Konami has trademarked the name Suikoden Tierkreis, whatever that may mean.
• David Hellman discusses the process of creating the art for Braid.
• BioWare is looking at the possibility of more Mass Effect DLC.
• Valve's Chet Faliszek talks about the company's tradition of extensive playtesting.
• Sega of America's Sean Ratcliffe admits that some of the criticism of the Sonic series is "probably warranted." Probably?
• Ozzy Osbourne and Zakk Wylde will appear in Guitar Hero World Tour as characters. Along with them will come the Ozzfest venue and songs Crazy Train and Mr. Crowley.
• For you single-issue voters: the last game Barack Obama played was Pong.
• GamePolitics notes that list of the ten most dangerous games the Thai government produced yesterday was just copied from a list released by Detroit prosecutor Kym Worthy last year.
• Hitler won't be making an appearance in the new Wolfenstein. Still on as the surprise final boss in Wii Music.
• The G-Phoria Awards air tonight on G4.
• Akihabara is now available in Google Street View, so you can tour Japan's famous electronics district without the travel. Or the stabbing.
• Luc Bernard is removing the Destructoid robot from Eternity's Child after the site gave the game dual 1/10 reviews.

PC and mobile news

New GameTap title: American McGee's Grimm: Little Red Riding Hood
New content: Halo 1.0.8.616 patch

• Ubisoft is suing a disc-replication firm they hired, alleging that an employee of the company was able to take home a copy of the PC version of Assassin's Creed and post it to the Internet through "an extraordinary breach of trust and gross negligence."
• Asus has created the Eee Stick, a motion controller very much like the Wii remote for their Eee PCs.
• Blizzard is looking for a new art director for Diablo III, but say "this change won't impact the game."
• Leonard Nimoy will be at the Star Trek Experience on August 10 to unveil gameplay footage from Star Trek Online.
• Destructoid has details on what's improved in The Witcher: Enhanced Edition.

Nintendo news

• Now Nintendo's got Patrick Stewart is doing DS commercials. "You see I touch this witch and she tries to cover herself but it's too late. I've seen everything. I've seen it all."
• Amazon's deal of the day is Drone Tactics for $17.99.

Sony news

New media: Macross: Ace Frontier trailer, Motorstorm 2 screenshots and concept art, Heavy Rain screenshots now with less creepy mannequinism

• Gamers who pre-order SOCOM: Confrontation will get access to the beta on September 1, while Qore subscribers get access September 8.
• A woman in Sinapore bought a PSP for $1000 basically because she let a salesman swindle her. But hey, she haggled it down from $3500.
• The official Playstation blog tells you how to apply to the Home closed beta.

Microsoft news

New content: Battlefield Bad Company Conquest mode

• Fable 2 has been dated for October 21, and 1up has details on the collector's edition.
• Tales of Vesperia is getting a collector's edition too. That means, uh.. it has a soundtrack in it.
• The official Braid walkthrough tells you not to use a walkthrough. "Some of the puzzles will be hard. But when you manage to solve those hard puzzles, you will feel very good about it. The game will feel very rewarding. Don't rob yourself of that feeling by reading a walkthrough!"
• Roosterteeth has a video guide to getting the Smile achievement in Geometry Wars 2.
• Modder Ben Heck cracks open a 60 gig 360 to see if anything's changed.
• Despite how often they're slighted, Rare says Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo sold "phenomenally well."

Posted by Will at 6:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Gamespot has a selection of screenshots from the various games shown at Square Enix' ridiculously titled DKΣ3713 event, including this one from Parasite Eve: The Third Birthday. I suppose a gun battle in a wedding dress is still an improvement from the last time Aya was in formal wear.

Industry and multi-console news

• The Burnout Paradise bikes pack, which is the new name for the Davis update, is releasing in September.
• Hollyoaks star Gemma Atkinson is joining the cast of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3.
• Forbes has an article on the casual game boom going bust. "The possibility of your doing well is really, really low. Regardless of how well your games sell, you're not going to make a lot of money."
• This year saw the lowest number of E3 Game Critics Awards going to Japanese developers in 11 years.
• There's a rumor that the next Medal of Honor will take place in Afghanistan.
• If you've played the demo then you already know this, but Kim Kardashian has joined Peter Moore in the growing list of, uh, celebrities that are selectable as characters in Facebreaker.
• A group called Direct Action to Stop the War is protesting Ubisoft for their involvement in America's Army, saying the game violates UN protocols concerning military recruitment of children.
• Destructoid has video of Madden the man talking about Madden the game.
• In the wake of the murder of a taxi driver in Thailand supposedly inspired by GTA, the Thai Ministry of Health has released a list of the ten most dangerous games. No, "man" isn't on the list.

PC and mobile news

• GTA4 has been officially announced for the PC with a release date of November 18.
• Warhammer Online gets a September 18 release date.
• Blizzard has changed the recruit-a-friend program in World of Warcraft.
• Turner is looking to sell GameTap.
• John Carmack says he has turned down several offers to make a Quake MMO.
• Gamasutra has an opinion piece on the excuses made for piracy.
• Designer Jeffrey Kaplan explains World of Warcraft's achievements system.
• The Escapist talks to several developers about their choice to go indie.
• How They Got Game talks about the ongoing project to archive virtual worlds, and presents video of the final five minutes of EA Land, formerly known as the Sims Online. This is the way the world ends -- not with a bang but a "lost server connection" error.

Nintendo news

New media: Fatal Frame IV trailers

• A Wii system menu hack is in the works to make your Wii region-free without a modchip.
• Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People will be released August 11.
• Capcom is refining Spyborgs "considerably". Christian Svensson calls it "pretty much as significant an overhaul as Dark Void underwent from its first announcement to its first big reveal."
• Chrono Trigger DS won't hit PAL territories until early 2009.
• Starmen.net has a complete guide to everything that was changed between Mother 2 and Earthbound.

Sony news

New media: Mercenaries 2 trailer demonstrating what the PS2 version looks like

• The official Playstation blog lays out what you get for pre-ordering LittleBigPlanet.
• An interactive travel guide for the PSP called Talkman Travel is coming to PSN this Thursday.
• The Eye of Judgment World Championships start August 14.
• A homebrewer has gotten Windows Vista to run on a PS3 for seemingly no reason.
• Team ICO is feeling no rush at the moment in developing their PS3 title. "Time is not critical yet... Production has not reached the critical stage."
• Pricing has been announced for SOCOM: Confrontation.
• The PSP release of Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed has been canceled.
• The PS3 version of BioShock will include a Survivor mode which basically makes the game tougher.
• Phantasy Star Portable is selling very well in Japan, with 90% of its initial shipment disappearing from shelves on release day.
• Square Enix and Roen are teaming to present Final Fantasy Versus XIII formal wear. Not enough zippers and pockets.

Microsoft news

New Live Arcade title: Braid
New media: Infinite Undiscovery screenshots

• There's a new system update to download. It doesn't do anything.
• DLC on the 360 has brought in $240 million, with 180 million of that made in the last 12 months.
• During a keynote at the Develop conference, Bungie's Damian Isla spoke about Halo's AI systems.
• He also mentioned that Bungie has "a lot to learn" from the success of Call of Duty 4. "They did some very innovative things to keep people going and their experience-rewards system was something that we paid a lot of attention to."
• Rare senior software engineer Nick Burton talks about the Live Arcade version of Goldeneye. "It's just what happens legally sometimes. Not necessarily with games, but you see it with music and films. Things get locked in this legal limbo. Even most of the parties involved, probably all the parties involved want to solve it. It's such a complex issue."
• This week's Zero Punctuation review is Ninja Gaiden II.
• Jonathan Blow has explained why Braid is priced at 1200 points. "There is a significant possibility that Braid would have been the next Psychonauts or Beyond Good and Evil (critically acclaimed but nobody played it), even at $10. If that happens at $10 then I am in debt and have to get a job and can’t make games any more. If that happens at $15, maybe I can still make games."
• Amazon's deal of the day is The Bourne Conspiracy for $39.99.

Posted by Will at 6:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

That mustache looks good on anybody.

Monday's newspost took a powder following my router exploding and plastic shards flying into my eyes. I'm writing this right now with a speech-to-text converter nipple banana aardvark.

Industry and multi-console news

New media: Red Alert 3 beta footage, Resident Evil 5 gameplay footage

• You're probably aware that the Large Hadron Collider is due to begin operations soon and proceed to kill us all. One Reddit user has been forward-thinking enough to send the team a red crowbar.
• Thailand's leading game distributor has pulled Grand Theft Auto IV after an 18 year old robbed, stabbed and killed a Bangkok taxi driver while imitating the game.
• Soul Calibur IV has debuted at number one on the UK sales chart. Mind you that's the combined formats chart; with games separated out by system, Wii Fit is still on top.
• The ESA has received over $280,000 in legal fees from the state of California due to an overturned video game law.
• Gamasutra has an interview with Mega Man 9 producer Hironobu Takeshita. Among other things, he reveals that the game will include the option to turn on NES-era bugs like screen flicker.
• The full Rock Revolution setlist has leaked.
• Meanwhile, Stuff Magazine has revealed more Guitar Hero World Tour tracks. Beat It? You.. You just did a search for anything with Eddie Van Halen in it, didn't you
• The next Guitar Hero III track pack will feature Marilyn Manson, Flyleaf and AFI.
• Rhino Records says the Cars debut album was a Rock Band exclusive, as a whole. But individual songs from the album can and will be licensed to other games.
• A free Battlefield Bad Company multiplayer mode called Conquest is coming this Thursday.
• TotalFilm has an interview with Mark Wahlberg with more information on the Max Payne movie. "We’ve been shooting at 1000 frames per second. And I’m not on any wires, either! All the jumping and firing and flipping and landing on my head... That’s all real."

PC and mobile news

New content: Battlezone II 1.3 beta 4a patch, Ironclads: American Civil War demo

• Auran Games is shutting down the servers for their PvP game Fury.
• Further responding to Diablo III style complaints from fans, the game's lead designer looks at some fan-altered screenshots of what the game "should" look like and explains why they don't work. "I think one of the things that these lack is if you stuck every one of these re-done shots right next to each other you would not be able to tell that they’re in different areas."
• As long as he's gabbing, he also explains why the Witch Doctor replaced the Necromancer. Because he had a lot of deadweight?
• Massively has an interview with an EVE Online outlaw.
• John Carmack says Steve Jobs doesn't care about games, and that's why Apple doesn't "deeply get" gaming. "This is going to be one of those things that I say something in an interview and it gets fed back to him and I'm on his s***head list for a while on that, until he needs me to do something else there. But I think that that's my general opinion."
• The creators of Neopets have announced an MMO called Twin Skies.
• The Force Unleashed is coming to the iPhone.
• Doug Lombardi is "happy" to discuss the possibility of Valve being acquired.
• GamesCampus has announced an open beta for their MMO Asda Story, with the promise that they'll pay you $30 if you don't like it. Naturally it's not quite that simple: You have to hit level 40 by September 4 and then fill out a survey about what you didn't like.

Nintendo news

New WiiWare title: Wild West Guns
New Virtual Console titles: Splatterhouse 2, Sonic the Hedgehog (Master System version) -- Three games announced for this week haven't shown
New media: Metal Slug 7 trailer

• Volition says a Wii version of Saints Row would be a bad idea because of the controversy motion controls would bring, much like what happened with Manhunt 2.
• Satoru Iwata says there aren't plans for many more Wii peripherals. "Most of the ideas for accessories that we had initially come up with are out now."
• A retail tipster tells Kotaku that Rock Band 2 is coming November 18 for the Wii.
• Capcom is hoping to get 100 zombies on screen at a time in the Wii version of Dead Rising.
• 1up has an Afterthoughts feature on My Life as a King. They mention there is no future DLC planned at the moment.
• Questions from a marketing survey may give some vague details on GTA Chinatown Wars.
• Culdcept DS hits Japan in October.
• Fatal Frame IV features Luigi and Zero Suit Samus outfits.

Sony news

New content: Drake's Fortune trophy patch

• Valve has denied rumors of a PS3 version of Left 4 Dead.
• Warhawk features and trophies will be going live August 27.
• Atlus has announced strategy RPG Eternal Poison for the PS2. This is the American name for the game Poison Pink in Japan.
• A retail tipster tells Kotaku that Rock Band 2 is coming October 19 for the PS3.
• Signs spotted at Best Buy list "Final Fantasy VII" on the PS3 with a date of August 16. The question here isn't so much as to whether this is some big secret release (it's not), but how the screw-up happened. There's nothing remotely Final Fantasy related coming out anywhere near then.
• The official Playstation blog has details on a few of BioShock's trophies.
• Some users are reporting that their PS3s no longer read discs after installing the 2.42 firmware update.
• There's a rumor that Phil Harrison left Sony because of the PS4. "He could see he was about to get involved in another PlayStation cycle, and obviously wanted something new."

Microsoft news

New content: Rock Band tracks, Alone in the Dark demo, Wall-E demo, Burnout Paradise Cagney update

• This week's Live Arcade title is Braid. Despite Microsoft's denial of earlier reports, the game does indeed cost 1200 points.
• Microsoft says Avatars will be for E-rated games only for now. "That doesn't mean it won't change -- but this fall they won't be able to blow each other's heads off."
• Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader is coming to Xbox Live Arcade, complete with Harbinger of the Endtimes 3D Jeff Foxworthy.
• Geometry Wars 2 contains a hidden 3D camera mode.
• Onechanbara Vortex is coming to American 360s as Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad.
• A retail tipster tells Kotaku that Rock Band 2 is coming September 14 for the 360.
• The OFLC has rated something called R-Type Dimensions for the 360.
• Gears of War 2 will include violence filters that will eliminate cursing and replace blood with sparks.
• There will be a Game With Fame event on August 7th in which you can get the chance to play Halo 3 with Hawthorne Heights. I guess bands these days are all named after suburbs?
• There's an Xbox Live phishing scam going around in the form of messages from people in your friends list. If you get it, you'll know your friend was dumb enough to think loginxbox.tk was a legitimate site for getting free Microsoft points.
• The Live Arcade version of Quake Arena has been canceled.

Posted by Will at 6:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

• Crash Time (360) - The demo for this was hilariously horrid. I think that's the best recommendation you're going to get. $29.99 at Amazon.
• GRID (DS) - If you passed it up on the 360 and PS3 waiting for the moment it would look like a PSX game, here you go. $29.99 at Amazon.
• Little League World Series Baseball '08 (Wii, DS) - The eyes on these characters freak me out. $49.99 on the Wii, $29.99 on the DS.

And it just goes downhill from there. Gamasutra hasn't even bothered to do a release column this week, so you'll have to turn to Gamespot for a full list of all the nothing coming out.

Posted by Will at 2:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's Space Invaders' 30th anniversary, and if you happen to live in the country where the game was created, you can buy all sorts of crap with blocky aliens on them.

Industry and multi-console news

New media: Red Faction: Guerilla multiplayer footage

• An "all new" Call of Duty is coming in 2009.
• Edge lists the 20 greatest challenges facing the game industry.
• According to retail sources, Fallout 3 is coming to Australia with slightly modified content.
• John Carmack says that id had a survival horror game called Darkness in the works for 18 months before canceling it because "we would have been keeping Doom 3's faults."
• Racketboy lists the rarest and most valuable Dreamcast games.
• The director of Soul Calibur IV says there are no plans for Yoda or Darth Vader DLC, despite the fact that there's that open slot in the character select screen and it's the only thing that makes sense. Then again, this is a site I've never heard of and they include a :D smiley in one of their interview questions, so this whole thing might be a dream triggered by huffing paint.
• Sonic Unleashed will be known as Sonic World Adventure in Japan. The developers have previously mentioned they approached this game as a follow up to the Adventure series, I guess they really meant it.
• Fidgit interviews the guy who drummed all 235 Rock Band songs in one day. Just longer than a full day, actually.
• You can get a Madden demo at 7-11 if you "sack a Madden meal" that costs $6. Or you could just download it for free. But this one comes on a disc!
• EGM's rumor column claims Konami will be reviving one of its retro series in the same way Capcom has lately.
• The Wolfenstein movie is still underway, with Roger Avary writing the script as we speak. ""With the writer's strike it took so long to get underway and Roger Avary, the writer, had a commitment that was in line before working the Wolfenstein stuff." I wonder if that commitment was getting arrested for suspicion of drunk driving and manslaughter.

PC and mobile news

New content: The Guild 2 1.40 patch

• Apparently whiners are still whining about Diablo III's artwork for not being entirely grey. Blizzard says "there's no going back now."
• How They Got Game looks at one of Sid Meier's earliest titles.
• Eternity's Child is now available on Steam.
• Valve is looking to create a new environment for the next Team Fortress 2 update.
• John Carmack claims the iPhone is "more powerful than the DS and PSP combined."

Nintendo news

New media: SimCity Creator trailer -- take a look at the people they have modeling with it and realize this is Not For You

• The original Mega Man is coming to the Virtual Console this week, with Mega Man 2 coming in September.
• Japanese researchers have named a protein after Pikachu.
• Capcom confirms you'll be able to play Mega Man 9 with the Classic or Gamecube controllers. The latter means you could also use one of those NES controller adapters for the true retro experience.
• A study at Banner Good Samaritan Hospital finds that playing a Wii adapted to train surgeons improved their skills by 50%.

Sony news

• Remember the news a week or so ago that a "major" new PS3 exclusive was going to be announced August 3? Well, the date is here and the game is... Hardware 2. Yeah, I know, you have no idea what Hardware is. Apparently it was some Europe-only PS2 online game.
• A Final Fantasy XIII demo will be released in March in Japan, bundled with the Blu-ray edition of Advent Children.
• Mobile titles Parasite Eve: The Third Birthday and Final Fantasy Agito XIII are coming to the PSP.
• Boulevard Entertainment says there is still potential in the UMD market at the right price.
• Official Playstation Magazine is claiming that Left 4 Dead is coming to the PS3, with development being handled by EA.
• NIS America is releasing Ar Tonelico 2 for the PS2 this December.
• Sony Europe is publishing a disc version of Siren: Blood Curse this fall. No word if the same is being done for America.
• 2K's finalized PS3 BioShock box art adds a Little Sister and removes the Home logo.

Microsoft news

• A software development engineer for Microsoft Game Studios was murdered by her estranged husband, who then turned the gun on himself.
• Square Enix says that work on the 360 version of Final Fantasy XIII hasn't even begun.
• Bungie warns they will ban players who use Halo 3's file share to upload porn. "This includes some never-before-unleashed technology that will effectively terminate your Halo multiplayer experience online in every imaginable facet."
• The Burnout Paradise Cagney update is coming on Monday.
• Ars Technica's mole is reporting the rumor that price cuts are coming for all 360 models in September.
• EA says they'll be incorporating Avatars into their games. "Putting guys in football gear or battle gear and making them available will be part of the plan."
• An anonymous source has supplied what is claimed to be the first images of Microsoft's Avatar creation system.
• Some people are reporting getting 500 free points mysteriously deposited in their Live accounts. The most sensible theory says it has some connection to the GTA4 pre-order bonus, but some of those reporting say they never bought GTA4.
• IGN Insiders and and FilePlanet subscribers can get access to the Red Faction: Guerilla beta.

Posted by Will at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A 1988 episode of 20/20 brings this John Stossel report on that damned Nintendo thing the kids are so into these days. Pretty much every moment of this is gold, from Stossel's incredulous tone while describing Mario's "ridiculous plot," to his questions of why the Japanese are the ones having all the success (still a genuine concern in the late '80s), to the kid at 4:26 in the first video with really odd controller hand placement. But better still is watching the whole thing and counting how many quotes could apply to games today with no change whatsoever, right down to the lines in Japan for Dragon Quest and claims that Nintendo is creating a false shortage to fuel demand.

A selection of famous characters created in Soul Calibur IV's customization mode. Some of them work better than others. "Okay, there's Robin and... Christopher Walken?"

You know what the problem is with speedruns: They're just too slow. I don't have all day to watch you play Mega Man 57. Thankfully, with judicious application of emulator tools and game glitches, you can do things like beating Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance in 24 seconds. I've got time for that, I guess.

A speedrun of Oblivion in 11 minutes and 19 seconds. Not quite so impossibly quick, but still a major shortcut considering the size of the game (again accomplished via glitches). Unfortunately, there's no sound and all the text is in French, so it's a little hard to follow exactly how it's being done unless you remember Oblivion really well.

Speaking of Oblivion, Adoring Fan sure is a sensitive sort.

Pick up the can.

Mario World can be a daunting place for the uninitiated. But one man bravely gives it a try.

The background music in that video made me think of this one, reminding us that Peach is really kind of starved for choices in the Mario universe. Is there a single man there who isn't some kind of midget, turtle monster, toad creature or Luigi?

Posted by Will at 2:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

[image source]

The Error Macro Soul Calibur IV strategy guide:

1. Pick Yun-Seong
2. Lure opponent within 500 miles of stage edge
3. Execute throw
4. Celebrate victory

Industry and multi-console news

New media: Rage first screenshots and trailer, Wolfenstein screenshots and trailer

• Along with a re-announcement of Doom 4, QuakeCon 2008 also revealed that Rage will see a loss of graphical fidelity on the 360 due to the compression needed to fit it on two DVDs, and Quake 5 is not in the works. Todd Hollenshead also mentioned he'd like to do another Doom movie.
• Gamasutra has an interview with John Carmack about Rage and the relationship between id and EA.
• Famous football player Jim Brown is suing EA and Sony for the use of his likeness in Madden games. He's never actually been used in the series, but "a muscular African American player wearing the number 32" playing running back for the Cleveland Browns is apparently close enough.
• Edge explains why it's time to let the Sierra brand die.
• The Prince of Persia movie has been delayed by almost a year.
• MTV explains how bikes work in Burnout Paradise.
• Next week's Rock Band tracks consist of three tracks from Buckcherry, Motley Crue and Sixx AM for 80 points each, and two System of a Down songs for 160 points each.
• Australian actress Sheva Alomar is being used as the model for Chris Redfield's black friend in Resident Evil 5.
• A Disney trivia game is coming to the Wii and PS2.
• Soul Calibur IV DLC has been released, including new equipment and, oddly, a number of music tracks from the original Soul Calibur. But no Vader/Yoda.
• Video Games Live - Volume One has debuted at #10 on Billboard's Top Classical Crossover Albums chart.
• It looks like a second Bourne game was in the works, called Treadstone. Variety describes it as "a multi-player online game set in the world of the spy agency that trained Bourne." Production has stopped with Vivendi dumping the license and the rights going back to Ludlum Entertainment, but they could always choose to continue its development somewhere else.
• EA says Boom Blox will likely come to other systems in time.
• Developer Pixel Mine has announced that their PC game Fireteam Reloaded is the first game to receive a Texas game production grant.
• A new Illinois law requires MMO providers to offer an online cancellation option.
• The Hot Coffee class action suit isn't over yet after all: A judge has ruled that purchasers of GTA:SA can't be lumped together in a class action, because each person's claim would be affected by their home state.
• Now with plenty of time on his hands, Tomonobu Itagaki weighs in on Okami, as well as Hideki Kamiya's recent comments that the action genre hasn't moved forward since the first Devil May Cry. "Was he asleep for eight years?"

PC and mobile news

New content: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 5.5 unofficial patch
New media: Wolfenstein RPG trailer

• Capcom says the PC version of Devil May Cry 4 "is getting pirated to hell and back." Business development VP Christian Svensson has pushed for digital distribution, but Capcom Japan hasn't allowed it.
• In the ongoing case of Blizzard versus MDY, the makers of the Glider WoW bot, Blizzard has asked that MDY be blocked from making Glider open source.
• The system requirements for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky have been released.
• Development on Hellgate: London and Mythos is continuing under T3 Entertainment.
• Wrath of the Lich King is coming Q4 2008.
• Blizzard plans to institute achievements in all their games, with a "Blizzard Level" system tracking your progress across all the titles.

Nintendo news

New media: Trackmania DS screenshots and trailer, Sonic Chronicles trailer

• Square Enix has announced a new brand called Pure Dreams and with it, two new DS titles, including one titled Snoopy DS: Let's Go Meet Snoopy and His Friends. Yes, that Snoopy.
• A third party balance board has cropped up at Amazon UK.
• Deep Silver has announced a Wii exclusive survival horror game called Cursed Mountain.
• A kid in China is charged with faking his own kidnapping because his parents "had refused to buy him a Nintendo computer."
• Nintendo's suit against the makers of the R4 DS piracy cart has led to a spike in sales and an increase in price of the R4.
• The American Council on Exercise has released a report comparing the calories burned playing games in Wii Sports versus their real counterparts.

Sony news

New PSN title: PixelJunk Eden
New content: Rock Band tracks, Lego Indiana Jones demo, Madden NFL 09 demo, Facebreaker demo

• Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty has been dated for August 21.
• LittleBigPlanet has been given an October 30 release date in Japan.
• A 2D version of Echochrome is coming to Home sometime in the future.
• It seems Afrika has been renamed to Hakuna Matata for the Asian market, though whether the change applies to other regions isn't clear.

Microsoft news

New content: Ticket to Ride European expansion

• Microsoft says microtransactions could come to avatars in the future.
• Microsoft says they're not getting rid of Live Gold fees.
• Microsoft says "Give me your money."
• Edge has posted part two of their Inside Xbox Live feature.

Posted by Will at 6:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)