Archive for September, 2008:
QuickPicks
Dell S2309W 23-inch 1080p LCD Monitor
Dunst Confirmed for Spider-Man 4 and 5
VW Jetta TDI Goes to Guinness Book
Jack Thompson “I’m Being Watched”
You thought he was gone for good, didn’t you? The eccentric, anti-game lawyer, Jack Thompson has made headlines once again. Anyone who knows Jack Thompson, or even anyone who knows of him, will tell you 
that simply disbarring him wont keep him quiet. There are plenty of issues with non-legal nature that he can over react to. Like being spied on.
“When I went to the Ferguson Federal Courthouse today, the Deputy Marshals were waiting for me because they clearly knew I was coming. The black binder that contains alleged “threats” was opened to my page, featuring two pictures of me, and with the explanation, read to me by the Deputy, that I am to be escorted because I am about to be disbarred, because I have filed lawsuits that have been dismissed, and because I allegedly wrote inappropriate letters to judges. By all means, let’s round up half of the United States’ population including all Members of Congress, why don’t we.
The fact that this multi-page binder was already opened up to my page as I walked through the front door suggests surveillance by some means by the US Marshal. There have been other bits of evidence suggesting this surveillance, but this is the clincher. The most likely means of doing so are my cell phone use by satellite monitoring, land line phone taps, and/or taps on my home computer.”
Why he assumes that “they” would be tapping into his various means of communication is beyond me. Unless he is secretly suing Rockstar via cell phone it seems like a major waste of resources. Besides, chances are most of his phone calls go along these lines: “Did you hear that they had the nerve to disbar me?…. oh, you saw it on the internet too?”
I doubt this is the last we’ll hear of the notorious Thompson, and I anticipate he will find some type of “legitimate” way of attacking Rockstar, or any other game developer he dislikes. For now though, this should be all we hear out of him for the time being.
Tags: jack thompson
Daily Battle – 9/30/08
New Resident Evil 5 Screenshots
Nintendo To Revive An Old Franchise
Tiberium Cancelled
New Content Announced For Force Unleashed
Drug-dealing GTA Incites Fury from UK Drug Support Group
Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 Demo Coming
Why Gears of War 2 isn’t on PC? PIRACY!
AC/DC Rock Band Spinoff Coming
Stupid NASCAR Driver Tries Video Game Tricks in Real Life
Age of Booty Goes Gold, Arriving October 15
PSP MMOs in the Future
Nintendo’s New DS Pretty Much Confirmed, Company Still Silent
Game Stocks Drop as Wall Street Crashes
War World Hitting XBLA
Age of Conan Getting Servers Merged
300 Director to Make Games
Guitar Hero 4 Music Sharing to Disallow Covers, Take Down Any Songs That Resemble Copyrighted Material
Mods On Steam
New Resident Evil 5 Screenshots
It’s been a little while since We’ve had news on Resident Evil 5. Rather than let people forget how good the graphical elements are, Capcom has released not one, not two, not three, not five, but four new screenshots. The four screenshots show everything from a dirt bike race to a thing that looks like a cross between Thor and the grim reaper (I assume it’s a zombie). You can view the pictures after the jump.
Nintendo To Revive An Old Franchise
As you may or may not know, Nintendo is holding a press conference in Japan on Thursday. So far the only 
hint of what the conference might hold is a new Nintendo DS. Today, however, there is news that Nintendo will also announce a new title for Wii. Of course, by “new” they mean that they will revive an old franchise. The only other hint about the game was that it is something that everyone is waiting for.
At this point, I would like to see how Nintendo could pull off delivering a game like this which is not called Kid Icarus. Either way, core Nintendo fans will finally have something to be happy about.
Tiberium Cancelled
We first learned the first person shooter based on the Command & Conquer universe, Tiberium, would be delayed to a 2010 release. Today, even more upsetting news has been delivered; Electronic Arts announced that the game is cancelled. Mike Verdu, the executive producer for the canned title, said that the reason behind the cancellation was due to the game not meeting quality standards.
New Content Announced For Force Unleashed
If you haven’t already blazed through the regrettably short but often enjoyable Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, you might be happy to know there’s some new content coming. It’ll be coming in two rounds to both the Xbox 360 and the PS3 by the end of this year.
The first update brings a few different character models and costumes including everyone’s favorite whiny farmboy Jedi Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ki-Adi-Mundi and Kit Fisto.
The second will bring a new single-player level. Darth Vader’s secret apprentice will journey to the Jedi temple on Coruscant. There in his search for information about his father, he will “confront his inner demons” according to the official Lucasarts press release.
There’s no concrete release date or pricing yet for either of the download packs.
Drug-dealing GTA Incites Fury from UK Drug Support Group
Building up the hype train for the upcoming portable version of GTA that will let you sell drugs, British tabloid The Sun published an article Thursday titled “Fury Over Drug Deal Vid Game”.
The article had Darren Gold speaking on behalf of UK support group Drugsline, calling out the game for its “glamorization” of drug-dealing and “substance misuse”.
Ah, but it’s all a video game, right? Right? No one’s listening, and they obviously don’t care.
Rockstar will undoubtedly benefit from the free publicity GTA: Chinatown Wars will get from groups such as this. The game is due out later this year or early next year.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 Demo Coming
From Eurogamer comes word that Konami plans on releasing playable demos on Thursday for Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.
The demo will offer five minute exhibition matches, including multiplayer. Players will be able to choose from Liverpool, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Barcelona and the Italian and French national teams.
Word is that the demo (and final game) will support the revised Xbox 360 controller with its non-random D-pad.
Why Gears of War 2 isn’t on PC? PIRACY!
Piracy, piracy and piracy. That’s all developers seem to talk about these days. And that’s also the reason they are abandoning the PC as a viable platform for video games.
Talking to Total Video Games, Epic’s Cliff Bleszinski discussed the absence of a PC version of Gears of War 2, citing piracy as one of their problems.
"Right now, it makes sense for us to focus on Xbox 360 for a number of reasons,” he explained. “Not least PCs with multiple configurations and piracy."
He elaborates on the matter, saying how anyone who is “savvy enough to want to have a good PC to upgrade their video card, is a person who is savvy enough to know bit torrent to know all the elements so they can pirate software.”
AC/DC Rock Band Spinoff Coming
The New York Times reports that MTV will later today announce AC/DC Live: Rock Band Track Pack, the first spinoff title for the Rock Band platform, taking a cue from Activision’s Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.
Set for release this November as a tool to promote the band’s upcoming album “Black Ice”, the game will feature all the tracks from their “AC/DC Live at Donnington” live album and cost less than $30.
A deal with Columbia Records and MTV with Wal-Mart will see the game being sold exclusively at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores, as well as on the store’s website. Expecting it to sell big, the store is said to be considering specialized temporary stores in Manhattan and Los Angeles, where it has no locations, to sell the game and album.
The game will be released on PS2, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii.
Stupid NASCAR Driver Tries Video Game Tricks in Real Life
Remember kids: video games isn’t real life! Somebody needed to remind NASCAR driver Carl Edwards that he wasn’t playing a video game when he was in second place going into the final lap of Sunday’s NASCAR Camping World RV 400. Desperate to take the lead, he made use of his video game knowledge and slammed his car into the concrete outer wall of the track, expecting a bump in speed. As one can expect, it did not work.
"I planned on hitting the wall, but I didn’t plan on the wall slowing me down that much," said Edwards. "In video games, you can just run into the wall and run it wide open. That’s what I did, but it didn’t quite work out the same as the video game."
I don’t know what games Edwards plays, but that was damn stupid of him. His rival, Jimmie Johnson, took advantage of his stupidity by taking the lead in the season standings.
"I still can’t explain to you how surprised I was and shocked,” said a rather bewildered Johnson. “Still, it was pretty damn cool to see him bouncing around like that and skipping off the wall.”
Age of Booty Goes Gold, Arriving October 15
Pirate strategy game Age of Booty has gone gold and will arrive as a digital download on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network on October 15 and 16, respectively, costing 800 Microsoft points ($10).
Created by Certain Affinity, the game is a hex-based strategy title formerly known as Plunder, which was, in turn, inspired by a Bungie joke about a “Pimps at Sea” game.
A PC version will also be released on digital distribution sites such as Steam for a $10 price tag. Demos for all platforms are expected to arrive soon.
PSP MMOs in the Future
I’ve stated it over and over again that the PSP is a poor, poor platform that is ignored by the developers and inundated with bad ports despite having excellent hardware and potential to be great.
Sony Online Entertainment seems to be on the path to make the platform stand out, as company president John Smedley has publicly opened up the possibility of MMO games for the PSP that could make it better than the DS finally.
Speaking at a panel conference on the future of the genre, Smedley commented on the PSP’s wireless internet capabilities and how well the console has sold worldwide, noting that the company sees a future where we will see “full MMOs that are designed for the PSP.”
However, we won’t be playing World of Warcraft on our handhelds anytime soon. “You could have a pet-training system that literally connects to our online gaming where you can mess around with your pet," said Smedley, specifically citing SOE’s upcoming free-to-play MMO FreeRealms.
That concept might eventually evolve into a full blown handheld MMO that changes based on connectivity. Let’s hope for the best!
Nintendo’s New DS Pretty Much Confirmed, Company Still Silent
According to reports from Japanese-language newspapers Yomiuri and Nikkei Net, Nintendo will release an upgraded model of the DS. It will feature a camera, music playback and modern features and will be released in Japan later this year.
They additionally report that pictures taken using the camera can be used in games released for the system. It will also allow users to import music from CDs onto the handheld for playback. Wi-fi will also get a boost.
Following this, Nintendo issued “no comment” statements in both Japan and the US, stating that they are “not making any official announcements at this time.”
In a statement to MTV Multiplayer, the company said that the “Nikkei newspaper wrote a recent story about a DS solely based upon their own research and speculation, without interviewing Nintendo. While Nintendo is always working on new hardware, we have not made any announcement about a DS and we cannot comment on the Nikkei story.”
Nintendo is expected to announce the new product this Thursday at a press conference in Japan.