New Halo 3 screen shot… is not news.

July 6th, 2007

Apparently there’s a new Halo 3 screenshot making the rounds today. Normally, I wouldn’t bother posting about it, since I don’t care for the series in the slightest. I understand that’s completely bizarre for anyone who considers themselves a gamer.

Dyson over at Destructoid echoes my sentiment over this ‘news’.

“The day that Halo 3, or anything Halo related comes out; I’ll be staying at home in my pajamas while playing Tetris. I honestly, in no way, could give a rat’s ass about this game. “

Though I’ll be playing Puzzle League instead, it’s a minor difference, but I know now that I’m not the only one who doesn’t get all weak-kneed at the mention of the series.

I will concede that the screen shot does look nice, however.

Link! (Destructoid)

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A series of unfortunate events

July 6th, 2007

Some days I’m glad that I don’t work for Sony, or at least for their PR department. It seems that every few days or so there is a new debacle that Sony is apologizing to some group or another for. PSP Ads, goat entrails, and the like.

Here is a (quite abbreviated) timeline showing just a few events in the saga that is known as Resistance: Fall of Man:

  1. Sony releases Resistance: Fall of Man about aliens that invade Earth. Said game includes a scene of a shootout with the aliens in a fairly detailed reproduction of a cathedral.
  2. Church of England takes offense that the game is promoting firefights with aliens in the cathedral. Makes several demands including a public apology and donating a portion of the game’s profits to the Church for education.
  3. Sony capitulates, takes out full-page apology in local newspaper

The Church might have taken a bit more offense than was necessary. I honestly don’t think that anyone I know would be tempted to go to England, find the cathedral, and have a shootout with some marauding space aliens.

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Rare

July 5th, 2007

There was a time when Rare made some pretty good games. Their N64 years were stellar. Goldeneye was by all accounts phenomenal, though I personally couldn’t get into it, same with Perfect Dark, for that matter. I would, however, end up whiling away far too many hours with Killer Instinct Gold, Banjo Kazooie, Banjo Tooie, Diddy Kong Racing, Donkey Kong 64, and Conker’s Bad Fur Day (by the time I decided I wanted to have a go with Blast Corps and Jet Force Gemini they were nowhere to be found).

Now that they exclusively develop and publish their console titles for their XBox systems, I’ll admit that I haven’t really kept up on their latest offerings. Mostly because I still don’t own an XBox or a 360. Their latest offering, Viva Piñata seems like it would be a decent game to try and recapture some of the successes of the Nintendo 64 heyday.

Eric-Jon Rössel Waugh over at Game Career Guide has a rather in-depth piece examining the game and focusing on the failures he sees. It’s a fairly interesting read.

“The most galling thing is that Viva Piñata is, at its heart, a good game: a charming, memorable concept, held down by a trunk full of the most inane problems. Result: playing the game, I feel like something innocent has had the life choked out of it. By accident, just because of poor judgment by people who should know better. As she said, it makes me sad.”

Hit the link for the full article.

Link! (Game Career Guide)

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Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer at E3,

July 5th, 2007

Last year at E3 we saw a relatively impressively done trailer for Metal Gear Solid 4. Now, a full year later, we are going to be treated to yet another one. How far is the game along? What does it actually look like? What’s the story? No idea, but at this point I’m beginning to wonder if there’s actually a game being developed or if Kojima is just making movies now.

I might be missing some subtle hints in the first trailer because I only watched it once and have never played any of the first three Metal Gear Solid games. In fact the entirety of my experience with the Metal Gear series was playing the first one long enough to find the guy who said, “I FEEL ASLEEP!”, laughing at him, and then putting in the password to get to the end of the game.

Link! (Kotaku)

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The year of the gamer

July 5th, 2007

GameDaily today is parading about their latest drivel, the ‘Year of the American Gamer’ feature wherein they profile a game player from one state each week for 50 or so weeks. There’s no word on whether Washington D.C. or any of the US territories are going to be included.

The first ‘profile’ is more like the blurb inside the dust jacket of a terribly uninteresting autobiography. It doesn’t get into a whole lot of depth, but I do now know that some guy in New York had a TurboGrafx 16, and that he spends between $150 and $400 on video games annually. He’s what I would call a Gaming Lightweight.

“I owned a Sega Genesis when I was six years old, and a TurboGrafx-16 — no one probably knows what that even is nowadays. Now I’ve got a PC, Wii, Xbox, PlayStation 1 and 2, Dreamcast, Game Boy Color and my Genesis.”

Seriously, if I posted any longer of a quote from the article, I’d have reposted the thing in its entirety.

I’m marginally interested to see what they’ll do when they finally get to my home state of Indiana. The good money is on getting a profile of some guy from Indianapolis, though I wouldn’t be surprised to see Terre Haute, Bloomington, or French Lick. Whoever they get will probably gush about loving some basketball or racing game, and possibly working in something about corn (we have lots of corn in Indiana).

Link! (GameDaily)

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Pre-3

July 5th, 2007

The new ‘improved’ E3 is nearly upon us, and most of the news that’s fit to print has dried up to a mere trickle. I’m not going to be able to make it this year, but given that the show has changed into several small shows all over Southern California, it sounds like it’s going to be less stressful if I don’t go.

GamesIndustry.biz has put up a list of games that are expected to be at the event in some form or another. I can’t say that I’m looking forward to any of these games in particular, though games with titles like Zoo Hospital and The Golden Compass certainly have my interest piqued.

I also notice that Crysis is on the list. This game was also at E3 last year. The game looked good enough, but was dropping frames on the demo system that I saw. It will be interesting to see what another year of work has done to it.

Hit the link for the rundown of games expected to be there, then stock up on supplies so you can sit at home and pound that ‘refresh’ button for the entirety of the event from the comfort of your own home. I know I will*.

*will not

Link! (GamesIndustry.biz)

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People who play games the most, buy the most games

July 4th, 2007

In a recent NPD study, the group discovered that those gamers that play the most (40 hours a week or more) are also the ones that tend to buy more games. This really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

“[T]he smallest section is the most hardcore of all. Although they make up just 2 percent of the gaming public, “Heavy Gamers” own an average of 2.8 consoles and 1.9 portables. They play a whopping 39.3 hours a week, mainly on the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii, and buy a budget-busting average of 13.1 games every quarter–or roughly 4.5 games each month.”

I find it interesting that the article calls 4.5 games a month ‘budget busting’. I’ve easily eclipsed that some months, but my figure would include one current game and several bargain bin games. This study kind of implies that this mythical super-hardcore gamer subset buys 4.5 full-price non-budget titles a month. Kind of makes me think that I’m in my own demographic.

Link! (Gamespot via Kotaku).

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Independence Day

July 4th, 2007

Since today’s the day we celebrate out independence down here in the States, I thought it only fitting that I spend some time with Battalion Wars. It cost a pittance, I just had to fish it out of the bargain bin at my local Circuit City. I can’t think of a better way to spend this holiday than getting involved in a simulated military skirmish and blowing simulated things up.

EDIT: I also apparently decided to celebrate with spelling errors. Fixed.

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Wii demand outpaces supply seven months in

July 3rd, 2007

Seven months after the Wii has been released and you still can’t find the thing on store shelves. Had I not been at Target just after they got a shipment in, I probably wouldn’t have one. Heck, I could barely get accessories for the thing until a couple of months ago.

“Back in April, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata acknowledged an “abnormal” Wii shortage. Since then, the company has increased production “substantially” to help meet worldwide demand, said spokeswoman Perrin Kaplan.

But Nintendo also has to manage its inventory, said Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Lazard Capital Markets.

“Unfortunately you can’t ask a contract manufacturer to make a million a month, then 5 million,” he said.”

Link! (Courierpress.com)

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Video games more like Rock ‘n’ Roll than film?

July 3rd, 2007

Steve Meretzky over at Next-Gen posts an interesting piece where he likens the rise of the video game industry with the rise of the rock and roll industry. Though he draws some interesting parallels, it still seems a bit of a stretch.

“As with digital games, rock and roll was first adopted by the young, and was initially viewed with disdain and even alarm by their elders. As with being a gamer, being a rocker implies an element of counter-culturalism.

And, as with digital games, rock and roll was a whipping boy for the powers-that-be. There are speeches from the 1950s, attributing to rock and roll everything from promiscuity to riots, that would be almost indistinguishable from speeches being made today about the impact of games.”

Hit the link for the full article.

Link! (Next-Gen.biz)

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