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Miami police arrests Modern Warfare 2 pirate

It seems that Activision can’t get enough PR for the release of Modern Warfare 2, as the game is now in the spotlight after 18 year old Christian Del Amo was arrested by Miami Police for trying to sell pirated versions of the game.

This comes after Activision had hired an online investigation firm to look into suspicious posts on Craigslist advertising Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 bundles for sale. With the age of high-speed internet, where anyone can download the pirated version, why would you even try and sell the pirated version on a burned disc? That kind of “business” seems so 1999.

Scribblenauts review

Scribblenauts for the Nintendo DS is a kind of adventure game that you don’t see often — actually, there hasn’t ever been a game like Scribblenauts; an adventure game where your character progresses through the levels by you typing the name of an object, pretty much any object you can think of, from dinosaurs to cars, to monkey to trees, as long as it isn’t vulgar or trademarked, it’s probably in Scribblenauts. The core concept of the game is highly original and extremely entertaining, and if it wasn’t for a few issues, it would’ve been the ultimate must-have game for any DS owner.

The gameplay is simple and follows the standard 2D side scrolling fashion, but to solve puzzles in Scribblenauts, you need to use an object that might fit and help you move forwards. You “scribble” the object (say, a “meteor”) and poof! it appears on the screen. The goal of each level is to secure a Starlite at the end, and accumulate them. On top of that, you have dedicated puzzle levels, which don’t feature as much action but pack plenty of challenge for your imagination. Once you’ve settled in the gameplay and figured out how advance through the levels (maybe you need a club or a crowbar to break something, maybe you need a walking robot), you’ll be troubled by the rather frustrating controls the game has to offer. You control your hero (named Maxwell) via the stylus, where you point to an area on the screen, and he’ll run to it. But it’s far too easy to point a few pixels too far, and see yourself walk into certain death. More »

Braid coming to PS3 November 12

The highly successful platformer Braid, which has already won the hearts and minds of Xbox 360 and PC gamers, will find its way to the PS3 next week, on November 12. The game was released on the Xbox 360 over a year ago, and on the PC via digital distribution earlier this year. The PS3 version will carry the same price tag as the other versions; $15.

A chance to meet Uwe Boll

Uwe Boll, the infamous German filmmaker with smash hits, sorry, flops such as Alone in The Dark and Bloodrayne, will be available for photographs and signing in Van Nuys, California for two hours on Nov. 7, at the Spudic Movie Empire, where his film “Postal” will have a few screenings.

“Hold your wee for a Wii” gets $16m awarded by court

Remember the infamous stunt a radio station pulled off a few years ago, when the Wii was in shortage? The KDND-FM radio station offered the winner of the “Hold your wee for a Wii” contest a Wii console, all the contestant had to do was to hold their wee, or urine. Sounds easy, right? Well, no.

Contestant Jennifer Strange died of water intoxication, and her family sued the parent company of the radio station, Entercom Sacramento LLC. Today, the court ruled in favor of the family, awarding them $16.5 million in damages.

Nintendo announces DSi XL

Nintendo has gone ahead and confirmed various rumors of a new DSi with larger screens, by officially revealing the DSi XL, which the console will be called in Europe. The new console will have 4″ screens instead of the regular 3.25″, and the whole system will be substantially larger (as you can see above) and will even include a full sized stylus. So far the console has only been announced for Japan (as the DSi LL) and Europe (as the DSi XL), but we expect a North American announcement to come shortly.

Mini Ninjas review

Since Team Fortress 2 popularized the cartoonish look, many games have followed suit, most noticeably Battlefield Heroes and a few indie titles. Another game has joined the club, the not-so-serious Mini Ninjas, which, for a developer like IO Interactive, is certainly new grounds. IO is mostly known for the Hitman franchise, so few might be skeptical in how the developer handles a title meant for a far younger audience. Rest assured, the young audience will probably love Mini Ninjas, while the mature one will find aspects of the game enjoyable as well.

The story of Mini Ninjas is set in ancient Japan, where a Ninja Master sends out his students to investigate an Evil Samurai Overlord, but the students get captured. The Master sends his last two students, Hiro and Futo, who set off after the Evil Samurai Lord, who has used his powers to turn ordinary animals into his henchmen. The story is very similar to classic Samurai and Ninja movies, and especially Samurai Jack, if you ever crossed the cartoon series. More »

Peter Moore: disc based gaming a “burning platform”

Speaking PLAY Digital Media conference, EA’s Peter Moore has described sales model for regular, retail disc-based games as “burning”, noting that EA is focused on digital distribution and Moore advised other publishers to do the same. Moore noted that disc based games might completely go away within the next ten years.

…we’ll recognize it 10 years from now when we tell our grand kids, we’ll tell them we used to drive to the store to get shiny discs that have bits and bites on them and we’d place them in this thing called a ‘disc tray,’ and it’d whirl around…and they’ll go ‘What?’”

Check out more or Moore’s thoughts at Gamasutra here.

DICE pokes fun of Modern Warfare 2’s server issues

Ah, there’s always place for a little joke here and there. Following the disappointing announcement that Modern Warfare 2 PC version won’t have dedicated servers, DICE executive producer K.M. Troedsson was quick to point out on his Twitter:

Dedicated servers FTW. What ever secures a better online experience is a given for us

Yep, we agree: dedicated servers are always FTW. You can follow K.M. Troedsson twitter page here.

Zuma’s Revenge review

Developer PopCap is on a roll, continuously chugging out bite-sized casual games that’ll addict even hardcore gamers. That’s especially true for Zuma, one of PopCap’s most popular games ever. Originally released in 2003, the game has since sold more than 17 million copies on platforms ranging from PC and OS X, to DS and PSP, to mobile phones of every kind. We’re finally getting the sequel, Zuma’s Revenge.

While the gameplay in Zuma’s Revenge remains unchanged — for a good reason — the game does add a few new features, revamped and prettier graphics (including a widescreen mode), as well as a ton of new levels. In case you’re not familiar with the gameplay in Zuma, it’s relatively simple: you control a frog that fires colored marbles though its mouth, at several balls rolling along a path, headed towards a pit. If they reach the pit, you lose. In order to win you must knock out the balls as they roll towards the pit, but can only knock them out if you pair colors in three or more balls. And so it goes. In Zuma’s Revenge, once you complete the campaign, you unlock several challenged modes, where you have to score a certain amount of points before time runs out. More »

Katamari Forever review

It’s been a while Katamari took Japan by storm, and subsequently created a gaming sub-culture all over the world, persistently rolling katamaris everywhere. Katamari is now out for the first time on the PlayStation 3, with new visuals (full 1080p support), and a remixed soundtrack of the original, Katamari Forever gives fans what they’ve been waiting for. However, it doesn’t go beyond that, there’s no revolution here, or even an evolution for that matter, sans the technical update.

In case you haven’t heard about katamari before, your object is to “roll katamaris”, meaning roll huge balls of stuff lying on the streets, cars, benches, trees, people — everything, really, which constantly grows your katamari. Once again, as the “Prince”, you’ll need to complete different missions — in Katamari Forever, you’re doing missions in two “campaigns”, one for the King and one for the RoboKing, in all, there are 34 levels. More »

Madden NFL Arcade coming this December

EA has announced that a cut-down, arcade version of Madden will make its way to the Xbox 360 and PS3 in form of a download-only game. The game, which features 5-on-5 only play with all 32 NFL teams, and will cost $15 (or 1200 MS points) and will be available this December. NFL Arcade will also feature all the real stadiums with a shorter, 60 yard field and just enough team stars to build a decent 5 man squad.

U2 wants a video game as well

Music based video games are exploding at the moment, with Rock Band and Guitar Hero leading the way, making ordinary folks feel like rock stars, even though the plastic guitars and drum sets are as far from the real thing as they can get. With the new The Beatles game taking it a step further, and moving a ton of units, Irish giants U2 want a game of their own.

It appears that U2 was to be included in the last version of Rock Band, but the band pulled out at the last second. Now, they want their own game, to be the exclusive band, and not just add a few songs to something like Rock Band. U2 bassist Adam Clayton is quoted saying,

We definitely would like to be in there, but we felt some of the compromises weren’t what we wanted. That could change. I love the idea that that’s where people are getting music, and we’d love to be in that world. We’ll figure something out. What The Beatles have done, where the animation is much more representative of them, is what we’re interested in, rather than the one-size-fits-all animation. We didn’t want to be caricatured.

With such a huge name like U2 and all the albums they’ve made (not to mention their fan base), it shouldn’t be difficult getting a deal together. After all, they’re U2.

Pac-Man world record broken

Pac-Man made its debut almost 30 years ago in 1980 and has seen countless remakes and variations ever since. However, despite being on the market for so long gamers are still working tirelessly to smash previous world records for the game.

The latest record set forth by David Race managed to get to level 256 while collecting every piece of fruit and pill in just 3 hours, 41 minutes and 22 seconds. This is 42 seconds faster than the previous record of 3 hours, 42 minutes and 4 seconds.

So folks, Mr. Race now claims the top Pac-Man spot. What have you done with your life?

via kotaku

Target has gaming underwear, do you?

It seems that our buds over at Joystiq recently found themselves shopping at Target only to find a rack featuring nothing other than video game underwear. As you can see there’s Rock Band, Guitar Hero, Halo and more.

Although, the worst part about this is that there are no video game underwear made specifically for women. What gives?