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Happy New Year From DigitalBattle

We bring you the last post of 2006 (and number 300 in December). From all of us at DigitalBattle, Happy New Year. Take care, and we’ll see you on January 2, 2007.

Sincerely,
Armin Siljkovic
Darren Stevens
Matt Stone
Tobias Dahl
Gibran Nawaz
Kevin Cortez
Colin Newcomer
George Lester-Pearson
Steve Reddish
Breeze Flynn
Rajiv Ashrafi

HD-DVD Vs. Blu-ray, Once Again

While Sony and Toshiba are fighting over the next HD format, the consumers are losing, as always. Tek Jansen from GamesCentral compared several movies using the PS3 and Xbox 360 HD-DVD, and he concludes that HD-DVD is better. He writes,

When it comes to the format war, I would prefer the winner to be HD DVD, as I feel that they have more of an understanding of what consumers (and movie geeks) are looking for in a “next gen” format. I respect that Blu Ray looks and sounds great, but to me HD DVD feels more next gen with not only the great picture and sound, but also things like IME and U Control. Sony’s half assed attempt to match this with the shoddy Blu Wizard almost feels like a joke, and I am almost insulted as a hardcore movie fan.

In related news, TheInquirer’s Charlie Demerjian gives his ruthlessly honest and quite accurate opinion about the war, basically saying there’s always a winner in a format war, The Pirates.

Charge Your DS The Old Way

Forget about charging your DS using a standard adapter and all that, there’s a good old way of doing it. Japanese GameTech has made a hand-crank powered DS charger. You simply turn the handle to charge the battery.

Not the best way to charge anything, but fun to show off to your friends. Consider this the most pointless accessory of 2006. Video after the jump.

Read more

Best Buy Selling Tons Of PS3s

Best Buy has tons of PS3s on December 31, with at least 25 per store, while some stores will have 60 units available. Customers can purchase the consoles Sunday at 9AM, where “tickets” will be handed out one hour prior to the store opening. One ticket per customer, one PS3 per customer. This might not be the biggest surprise, since Best Buy and other retailers have had PS3s in stock for weeks now.

Via Joystiq (Thanks, Mark)

Saints Row Bugs: The Musical

Just when you thought you had enough of glitches from Gears of War, they come back to haunt you in another title. A gamer by the name of “cabel” made his own song about all the bugs in THQ’s Saints Row.

English MotorStorm Site Up

MotorStorm has already been released in Japan, and has received somewhat mixed reviews, despite having stunning visuals and ultra-realistic physics. It’s undoubtedly the best PS3 game since Resistance: Fall of Man, if not better. The Japanese version however, has few features and no multiplayer whatsoever, not even split-screen. Sony has opened the official English MotorStorm site, with new high-res screenshots and gameplay videos. The game is set for release on February 27, 2007. Video after the break. Read more

FF Crystal Chronicles: The Ring Of Fate Trailer

Remember the Wi-Fi enabled Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles game announced way back when the Nintendo DS was revealed? Well, after a few years, it seems to be coming along quite nicely. The graphics are completely 3D, and are looking fantastic. The game is scheduled for a Q2 2007 release in Japan. In addition, Square-Enix Is working on Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers for the Wii, a sequel to the GameCube title Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles.

BioShock Coming To PS3 As Well

The previously PC and Xbox 360 exclusive BioShock is coming to the PlayStation 3 as well, according to magazine scans of the latest OPM issue. There was a time when game magazines had all the latest scoop, making them invaluable to any gamer. Then someone clever decided to scan the important stuff from magazines and publish it on the net. Who reads magazines these days anyway? Besides those who scan them, of course.

Via MaxConsole

10 Worst Ways To Die In A Videogame

The top 10 interesting and fun ways of dying in videogames. Hey, we’re not chased by Jack Thompson for no reason, right? Although, I wouldn’t count death by boobies one of the worst ways to die.

Soldner 2 Announced

German publisher JoWood released a press statement announcing Soldner 2. The game is developed by the newly founded gEasy Development, and is expected to be released in late 2007. The original Soldner game has brought some interesting innovations to a multiplayer shooter, but was completely overwhelmed by severe gameplay and control problems. Hopefully Soldner 2 will be more a polished title, and actaully fun to play.

Soldner 2 Announced (Official Site)

Top Xbox Live Games Of 2006

These results are based on games connected to Xbox live from January 1st, 2006 to December 29, 2006. The top five Xbox 360 games were, in order: Gears of War, Hexic HD (it comes preloaded on the Xbox Hard Drive), Call of Duty 2, Ghost Recon 3, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The top five Xbox Live Arcade games were, in order: Uno, Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting, Geometry Wars Evolved, Marble Blast Ultra, and Pac-Man. The top original Xbox games were, in order: Halo 2, Battlefield 2, Star Wars Battlefront 2, Madden NFL 2006, and Counter-Strike. To see the full list of games, check out Major Nelson’s blog.

Gears Of War Glitches Getting Serious

When a multiplayer part of a game is popular and played for thousands of hours a day, all issues/bugs/glitches will eventually be found, and unfortunately, exploited. One of the more serious exploits gives the ability to sprint and shoot at the same time, another one let’s you jump and fly over 20 feet. More details about the exploits here. But fear not, Epic is coming with a patch in the beginning of January, hopefully.
[Thanks, Ronan]

Just How Many Wiis Are Sold?

There is some doubt over just how many Wii consoles Nintendo managed to sell this year. According to VGCharts, it’s 3,5 million, while nex-gen-wars claims it’s just over 2 million. Game TV show G4TV has their number at 3,19 million in worldwide sales, but none of the sites provide any sources, because there are no official sales numbers.

Japanese Media Create latest estimate is around 800,000 in Japan to date. Nintendo previously retracted a statement about shipping one million Wiis to North America this year, so the sales numbers are most likely lower than 1 million, possible 800,000 just like in Japan. The (conservative) estimate in Europe is around 300,000, bringing the total sales just under 2 million. Unofficially, of course.

Animal Crossing Movie Trailer

Back in May, we reported that there would be a Japanese Anime movie based on the game Animal Crossing. Now, you can see the trailer. Although, I am kind of disappointed by how cute it is, but what can you expect from a game like that? There are no plans for it to be released in the US, and frankly I hope it isn’t.

More Capcom Movies On The Way

After the great success of game-to-movie adaptations like Resident Evil, Capcom has decided to license more games into their line-up of live action movies. It was revealed a while back that both Ominusha and Devil May Cry would be turned into films. Today, a new Street Fighter movie, focusing on the scantily clad Chun Li, was announced.

Capcom is aiming for DVD and theatrical releases to coincide with game releases. They have recently hired a Senior VP Licensing Director, Germaine Gioia, to talk to Hollywood studios about the properties of movies based on video games. They also hope to license even more games, such as Lost Planet and Dead Rising.

South Korea Lifts Censors

Since the ESRB was established, there have always been censorships, bans, and things of that nature to stop video games from being too violent, too graphic, etc. The infamous attorney, Jack Thompson, has also been fighting companies like Rockstar Games, trying to ban titles such as Grand Theft Auto and Bully. Every part of the the United States has been seeking to make things a lot more family oriented and safer for everyone. South Korea, however, is not taking the Western route at all.

Previously, controversial games such as Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory depicted the North and South Korean conflicts. For that, they were banned and were not allowed to be sold. Recently, the Korea Media Rating Board has lifted the banishment of these games, and will be available at retail in 2007. After reviewing the content, they have decided to allow the games due to “freedom of expression.” We should really see more of this in other parts of the world.

Read (GameSpot)

HD-DVD Decrypted

A hacker known by the alias muslix64 has decrypted the AACS of an HD-DVD, using the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive This allows you to view the HD-DVD on software using your computer, or back-up the content files, just in case. The hacker also says that you will need a certain encryption keys for each movie. Currently, it is unknown how he even got them in the first place. The source code will be released in January.

The same encryption keys used on the HD-DVD format are similar to those used on Sony’s Blu-Ray format, so this is one step closer to decrypting that, too. Besides having full high definition on the formats, digital rights management was one of the reason for abandoning the DVD format. If both standards are fully cracked, could this mean the end of the format wars? Or could Sony’s offer to talk with Toshiba create a new format that could use an even greater encryption, and offer even better features and quality? It seems that with every new format war, there’s always the same winner: The Pirates. Video of Full Metal Jacket being decrypted after the break.

Read (TeamXbox)

Coming Soon: Ocarina Of Time 2D

Finally, the long awaited N64 classic The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time 2D fan remake is progressing. A SomethingAwful.com forum member created a topic with new info about the game, and has posted the following:

Daniel Barras, an old friend of mine, has announced that Release Candidate 1 of OoT2D will be released soon. He’s waiting on his laptop to be airmailed to him (and he probably needs to put a couple finishing touches on it).

The game is basically the 2D translation of Ocarina of Time for N64. It will include everything from the original game, and i BELEIVE he was intentionally coding in the glitches found in 1.0 gold cart, but i’m unsure if this will still be a feature. It will also include a special dungeon and 3 extra items (i think it’s armor, boots, and another sword. The only thing i can say for sure is the armor).

I’ve played a quick beta of the 2D remake, and I must say, it’s pretty fun. You can view a handful of screenshots and information here.

Read (SomethingAwful.com)

Blair’s Wife Gets A PS3

Many of this site’s UK visitors will know that on boxing day, Tony Blair took his family on a shockingly expensive, one week holiday. While no one is begrudging him a holiday, there has been a small up-roar over photos of his wife, Cheri Blair buying a PS3 while on holiday. This is quite a hot topic, as Sony recently shut down online retailer Lik-Sang to stop imports.

I think it is quite safe to say that the Blairs have little reason to flog the console on ebay, so it also brings up the question of, which members of the family are secretly gamers?

Read (Kotaku)

PSP Upgrade To Have 60GB HD?

According to Engadget, Samsung apparently has introduced their new N-Series line of 1.8 inch hard drives today, and there is indication that the 60GB hard drive may end up being used with the PSP in the near future. Details are very scarce at the moment, thanks to machine translation, but this may mean that a new version of the PSP is coming out with support of a 60GB HD. Engadget hopes to see that this will be announced at CES next month, with actual details we can understand.

Read (Via Engadget)

Next Page »

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