Archive for September 1st, 2006
Multi-Tap: A Week In Comments
Video of Mindless Drones Protesting Rockstar’s Bully
“I listened to every point he made, and have a rebuttle for each and every one.
-You cannot purchase the game only AT ALL right now… So he is wrong about it being sold BEFORE rated by the FCC(aka the ESRB he means).
-He thinks it is against the law for them to sell it without rating. RATING IS A VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. If they sold it without rating, it would be legal still. Infact there are many games sold without ratings still. Just places like Best Buy and Toys R Us choose not to sell unrated games.
-Online stores do not use DEBIT CARDS
-If you could buy it online with a debit card, where did the child get the money? How about being a parent, and checking what your child does with YOUR money.
-Games do not cause violence in the ‘ghetto’
-FIRST AMMENDMENT PROTECTS FREE SPEECH ergo NULL ARUGMENT.
-Washington DC has about the same youth crime rate as most of the rest of the country.
-Bully contains no such training to ‘train our children to be animals’.
-Rockstar games are not infact profiting from “our children”. Their games are marketed to the approiate age group (yes, I heard about the advertisment during the day that JT mentioned, bit deal, one time… I see beer ads on all night).
-Guns are illegal to purchase without a license, there is no legislature against selling games, they are considered speech, unlike a physical weapon.”
by scazza
“It really should be ‘do you know if there’s a number less than seven?’”
by JonathanEx
Hate It Or Not, Sony Isn’t Giving Up On LocoRoco
“All that press will ammount to nothing once people remember that the game is short, has no replay value, and has an incredibly crappy level editor, and they will once again not buy it.
I played it at TGS 2005, said it’d get it when it came out, bought it on launch day, got some trinkets with it, went to Korea on a 3 day trip and was 100% done with it. And 100% bored of it, too. It’s such a simple formula for a game that they could have done so, so much more with it. Like doubled or tripled the amount of playable levels. Used the neat level gimmicks more (the beachball level…). Had more minigames (a Locoroco pachinko minigame would be awesome). Included a decent level editor. But they didn’t do these things. I give it a 6 out of ten, because of its hideously average gameplay, short, predictable, and has negative replay value.
If you want to play a good version of Locoroco, check out Smartball on the SNES. At least that thing is a real platformer.”
by denki
The LAN Bacchanalia: Ritalin and Sextasy
“I was quite the consumer of chemicals in my LAN heyday. Gaming and drugs just went hand in hand for my friends. GBL was our drug of choice at Ferris State University in 1999. You could buy a gallon of the stuff for about $60 online, and it only took about one ounce to get you going. It was legal at the time, so the cops couldn’t do anything about it.
4 years of college was like one big LAN/monstrosity of a party for me. You could set up a game of Unreal Tournament, and anybody on campus could join in. A 10′x10′ room full of about 12 guys dropping GBL and smoking salvia playing Dream Cast was my life. We didn’t have Friday classes, so we would game/drop all Thursday night into Friday morning, eat pancakes for dinner at about 7am, sleep for 10 hours and have Philly cheese steak for breakfast. In the winter, we would go three days w/o seeing the sun. Unreal Tournament, Hentai, GBL, making techno, huffing, sex, robo, and whatever else I found laying on the sidewalk. it was a wonderful God amn disgrace. At the end of that first year, we were broken. I crawled home, a shell of a human being. Repeat for another three years..
Our last big, multi day bash was last new years. We had a LAN that quite litterly went on for 4 days. No drugs by then, but I drank at least 2 bottles of rum in the two days I was there playing Serious Sam 2, DDR, and Guitar Hero. There’s something to be said for waking up at 11am, and being drunk by noon.
My only regret is not keeping a written record of it all. In the years between 1996 and 2006, I was a cowboy, a goth, a skater, an artist, a drug abuser, a DJ, a graduate, an editor, a producer, a husband, a designer, and now a father. I wouldn’t undo any of it.
At 27, my body just doesn’t take abuse any more. My idea of a party today is a big bole of ice cream, maybe a re-run of Futurama.”
by Rayzak
PLAYSTATION 3’s Euro Slogan Revealed
“That’s odd, they seem to have forgotten to include the word ‘Hell’ after ‘living’.”
by Rambozo
Oh, What The F…. Rockstar Rethinks Bully Name
“They are doing that so that people who know nothing about the game more easily allow their children to buy it.
I think, it’s easy to see the difference between “Mommy, can I play Bully?” and “Please, can I buy Canis Canem Edit?”. Reminds me (again) of an Ukrainian matron who thought that GTA: San Andreas was about the life of St. Andrew.”
by Ilia Chentsov
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Dead Rising Street Broken In Europe (Well, For One Dude)
Poor Europe. Not only does the continent get games later, but also must claim Florian as a resident. Poor, poor Europe. Kotakuite MiLeS that Swedish retailers don’t really give a hoot about the Euro street dates. Case in point, he says:
I walked into our local game shop today and found Dead Rising standing in the shelves with a “Release 7/9″-sign on it. Cool, an empty promo case for the game I thought, got to get it next week. But when I talked to the seller he said that they had actually got the game yesterday but were told not to sell it before the 7th of September due to Europe release date.
Now the best part is that I’m a regular at this place so the seller snuck back with an empty bag, putted something in it and said “Okay, that’ll be $59.99 for Counter-Strike, you have a good day now”. So I paid happily, went to lunch and then walked home and slaughtered some zombies. Who really cares about Europe release dates when the US got the game one month before us?
Indeed. But, I do care about that Euro Dead Rising box art. That is HOT!
Guitar Hero 2 Pack Revealed
Harmonix just slapped up this Guitar Hero porn. Love the red guitar, but I was holding out hope that the shape would be different. I want to rock out on a Flying V.
Guitar Hero 2 New Box Art [Myspace]
“Love Hamster” Must be Duct-Taped Beforehand
In a wild bid for “Worst Name for a Videogame Ever”, Love Hamster is due on the Japanese DS scene on November 2nd.
Players can design six rooms for your hamster to run around in. You can also play dress up and teach your hamster words by speaking in the microphone.
There is currently no North American released planned, but if you really feel like your DS experience is incomplete without talking hamsters that throb and twitch like the freshly-extracted organs of your vanquished foes, I’m sure Bashy will be taking orders.
Love Hamster [Siliconera]
“Pyramid Head Should Not Dance.”
When I showed this to a horror aficionado friend of mine, he was incensed. To him, these hallowed halls of gore are untouchable, verboten, and not to be mocked! “Pyramid Head should not dance!” he screamed, clawing at me.
Here and now, recovering quietly and having a nice lie-down, I can only thank whatever dark gods prevented me from showing him this clip, which surely would have driven him mad with grief. Thanks for the link, Tara.
The Worst Games In The Entire Planet of Earth: Ring King
This one’s for Fruit Brute. No, you don’t need to say more. And neither do I.
This Day in Gaming, September 1st
1999: Konami releases Hybrid Heaven for N64. It’s an RPG with a 3D engine that we don’t know enough about to unfairly pigeonhole. Any readers want to do our job for us? Seriously. Login: MarkWilson Pass: isthecoolestthingever6969
1999: The 3DO Company releases Heroes of Might and Magic III: Armageddon’s Blade in US for PC. My golden years of drinking an mindless fornication called: they want their college years back. Can I sue a developer for making a game - I mean…DRUG - that’s this addictive?
2000: Microsoft announces they’ve signed 18 developers to make games for their upcoming Xbox console. Wow. 18 is a lot of developer power with major names in the mix like Lion’s Head. Maybe this Microsoft thing will take off after all? Maybe their next system could outsell Sony’s? Nah!
Have gaming history, trivia, or famous birthdays you’d like to see in TDIG? Drop us a line at tdig@kotaku.com
Sponsors Thanks
It’s back to school time, and we are sooo ready to learn! We’ve got new pencils, pens, pencil cases, protractors and pinkish lime green book bags. While the other kids were at the swimming hole, we spent this summer studying. You ask what? Stuff. And we have had some fantastic sponsors tutors, helping us keep focused and on the right track. We thank Maxell, Smirnoff Ice, American Apparel, HD-DVD and PC Magazine for keeping us smart all week long.
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My Mom Made Me A Zelda Wall Hanging!
“This is the wall hanging I commissioned from my mother. It’s based on this Wind Waker promotional desktop wallpaper with some modifications for material and sanity (Link’s shield is obviously more detailed in the drawn version.) I was inspired both by the “best gaming tattoo ever” and previous quilts that my mom made.“
Jeez. Can you imagine if your Mom loved you this much?
Zelda Wall Hanging [Free Play Gaming] (via Destructoid)
I <3 Addictive, but Glitchy Saints Row
I’ve been playing Saint’s Row almost nightly this week, which is sorta unusual for me. What with the Rocky Mountain News, Kotaku and my family I don’t usually have or take the time to play a game…nightly…. till 2 a.m.
But Saint’s Row has hooked me. I’m not crazy about the graphics, they’re sorta cartoony and that bugs me, but the rest of the single player game is golden.
SR is essentially a next-gen GTA. But there are two things that makes the game more addictive for me: the amazing artificial intelligence and the unbelievable rag doll physics.
It’s not that the bad guys are exceptionally clever or use good tactics, actually they sort of suck, it’s that everyone in this world seems to have a much higher level of AI than I’ve ever seen before.
Walking around on my home turf some woman walked by me muttering something about my attitude, so I pistol whipped her of course.
After I knocked her to the ground I was about to walk away, but a fellow banger (your gang’s members are all over the place, this one was just walking down the street) ran up and started kicking the hell out of the woman, screaming that the woman needs to show me some respect.
If you whip out your gun and fire a shot or two, people run, cower, beg for their lives. Some even run over and try to stop you. It’s amazing.
I noticed early on in the game that you can hop onto the hood of a car and car surf. “This will be fun,” I thought. But a few seconds into my ride and the driver just started freaking out, screaming, swerving all over the road. She was basically acting like you or I would if someone just hopped onto our car with a gun and expected to go for a ride.
It’s this across the board AI that makes the game, and running around inside it, so much fun.
I know rag doll physics are nothing new, but the way this game uses them is just hilarious.
The first time I noticed something different was when I got into a head-on collision with a convertible. Yeah, the car buckled. Yeah, glass broke. But then something else happened. The front passenger in the other car shot through the windshield and the backseat passenger went flying over my car.
And running into people, they don’t just fall over or get knocked to the side. They fly, arms flailing, legs at painfully odd angles, across the screen to land in crumpled heaps.
Sweet lord, this could be it’s own game.
The online modes are just as addictive. Volition has done a lot of things to make it tons of fun.
First off, the modes are really interesting. There’s Gangsta Brawl, Big Ass Chains, Protect the Pimp and Bling My Ride.
Most of these are modes you’ve seen in other games with a gangsta twist. But whenever you can pimp slap someone in a game it’s all good.
The game also supports gangs. You can form a gang and get members to join in. I’ve formed the Kotaku gang for those of you interested. Currently it consists of me. (My gamertag is crecente if you want to hit me up in the game.)
The best part is that most upgrades to your character’s appearance is done by earning cash in the ranked matches and then going shopping. I’m saving for some pimp sunglasses right now.
Unfortunately, Saints Row suffers from some of the worst lag I’ve seen in an Xbox 360 game. It makes the modes nearly unplayable. Every single game I’ve played online to date has suffered from this problem.
Fortunately, THQ have already said they are working on a patch.
We are working hard on the update now. Here are a few (but not all) of the issues we expect it to address:
· Improvements to the way the game handles packet loss and bandwidth management between players. This will address the issues commonly cited as “lag”, and general synchronization problems between the players’ clients (vehicles/players warping around, etc).
· The system for rating a player’s quality-of-service has been improved, and made less conservative. This means you’ll see many more matches with 10-12 player limits.
· Fix for the “clothes stealing” exploit in multiplayer
· Fix for widescreen formatting issues in certain resolutions
· Changes to Matchmaking phase, to get players in the game faster
At this time, we have no ETA on when the update will be available. We want it to be available soon, but we also want to make sure it addresses as many issues as possible.Microsoft provides product updates to anyone with a Live connection, even without a paid membership.
Get it done already, I need to get me some big ass chains.
Zombie City Tactics: Turn-Based Zombie Fighting!
Not all of us are lucky to be able to play Dead Rising in order to cathartically work out our zombie killing instincts. Those of us who live in the Eurozone are so far deprived of the luxury. So how to get our fix of zombie killing mayhem?
How about Zombie City Tactics, a turn-based strategy game “about outsmarting and defeating massively superior enemy forces… perhaps!” Apparently, this is a prototype proof-of-concept for a further iteration on the idea, called Zombie City Survivors, which aims to combine “elements from Zombie City Tactics, Fire Emblem, Resident Evil and an obscure freeware Gameboy Color demo called Hungry are the Dead.”
Why am I excited about this no-name project? Because I’ve long thought that the only genre that can accurately convey the same struggle against an inexhorable, insatiable zombie horde is actually the TBS. I can’t wait to give this a try.
Zombie City Tactics Go Crazy Fun Time [Game Set Watch]
Presidential Hopeful Campaigns in Second Life
Our very own Wagner James Au sent us a line to point out a story he’s just put up about former Virginia Governor Mark Warner’s in-game campaigning on Second Life.
The founder of the Forward Together PAC and Nextel, took to the virtual town hall to talk technology, homeland security , Roe v Wade and just why he agreed to make an appearance in Second Life.
From the in-game live interview:
HA: Thank you. Governor, during an Iowa appearance on Tuesday, you said, “My sense is we’ve got to make clear that we’re getting out of Iraq.” Do you think it’s possible to convey such a message, sir, without Tehran-sympathetic bad actors like Sadr and his Mahdi army seeing our withdrawal as an inspiring victory– with catastrophic consequences for a country already on civil war’s brink? Or to make the question more general, where are we in Iraq, and where can we go from here?
MW: The real question is, is our ongoing presence in Iraq making us safer? Of course, getting out of Iraq without a plan is as bad as going in without a plan. Our goals must be to ensure that as we redeploy from Iraq, we ensure that it doesn’t become an even greater haven [for] Al Qaeda, or Iranian expansionism. And this has been made more difficult by some of the Administration’s policies.
Au says that Wagner will be making another appearance in the game this fall to field audience questions. .
THE SECOND LIFE OF GOVERNOR MARK WARNER
[New World Notes]
Final Fantasy Goes Thriller
What did Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within have to do with the Final Fantasy video game series? The hell if I know… in response to my question “Where the hell was Cloud?”, I vaguely remember the fan boy ramblings from my friend John about “materia” and “Mother Gaia” when we wandered out of the matinee, but ultimately, I like to think the answer is “nothing at all.”
Stiil, if Final Fantasy is in the title, we can post it. Especially if it’s a lazy Labor Day half-Friday. So, for your edification , the soulless automotons of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within do Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
Sleazy Circuit City Ripping Off Xbox 360 Customers
How bad does Circuit City want your money? So much so that the retailer is willing to “instal” backward compatibility on your Xbox 360. Reader Brad snapped a photo of this sign at Circuit City in Newport Beach, California, which reads:
Want to play your original xbox games on your new Xbox 360?
Backward compatibility on the Xbox 360 is done through software*
Let Circuit City install it for you
For just $28.99What are the benefits to playing original Xbox games on my Xbox 360 console?
• Every game* will be playable in high definition.
• Every original Xbox game* will be upscaled to 720p and 1080i, and will take advantage of Xbox 360’s anti-aliasing capabilities, delivering a picture that is clear and crisper than anything available on Xbox.*Refer to the original Xbox games list to ensure compatibility on the Xbox 360.
Not sure where to start with this scam to fleece unsuspecting customers, but “Fuck you Circuit City” will do for now. This unscrupulous retailer is trying to convince customers, who sadly do not know better, that this is a service they need—much like extended warranties and aftercare. Backward compatibility isn’t even something that Circuit City can really install! I guess they can, but it updates over Xbox Live. And if you don’t have an internet connection, Microsoft will happily send you the backward compatibility software, which users can easily install themselves.
Circuit City is using asterisks to cover their false promises, luring customers and failing to point out a distinct point: Xbox games playing on an Xbox 360 look the same on an analog TV. An HD TV is necessary to give Xbox games that next-gen look. And customers smart enough to know this and refer to Microsoft’s BC list are definitely smart enough not to fall for Circuit City’s scam. Open season on the other shoppers, though.
More Here [Circuit City]
It’s Official, Assassin’s Creed Coming to the 360
After much shenanigans, Ubisoft has finally confirmed what we all knew: Assassin’s Creed is coming to the Xbox 360. Gamespot did a short Q&A with the game’s producer, Jade Raymond, but apparently forgot to ask if the PS3 and 360 versions would be hitting at the same time, or if the PS3 was getting the game as a timed exclusive.
No one has said that would happen, but since Ubi has been so hinky about saying that it was coming to the 360, you’d think there was some sort of deal cut with Sony.
Assassin’s Creed Q&A [Gamespot]
One Piece Grand Adventure
Secret One Piece Adventure Characters Go!
Oh, What The F…. Rockstar Rethinks Bully Name
Dear Rockstar… Are you out of your flippin’ gourds?
Rockstar has told Eurogamer that controversial PS2 title Bully is getting a name change.
From now on, the game will be known rather less catchily as Canis Canem Edit - Latin for Dog Eat Dog.
There’s a lot of reasons why this is just an objectively terrible idea.
For one thing, you just know that the same swollen-tongued plebs who wander around pronouncing Deus Ex “Doo Sex” as if it were the title of a scatalogical porno aimed at toddlers are going to mangle Canis Canem Edit.
But the larger point is that implied capitulation to the whiners, complainers, politicians and professional, poofy coifed jackasses like Jack Thompson mollifies no one. In fact, Rockstar, it makes you look weak, open to further attacks.
But the most important point is that the name just plain sucks. Bulworth Academy would still have been a shameful retreat from the game’s subject matter, but at least it sounds good.
Of course, the question is: is this name change only happening for the Euro release? Do they think the average European knows Latin?
Vampire Night
Have Light-Gun, will travel.
Def Jam Fight for NY: The Takeover
Break yo’ necks with new music.
Found: Nintendo’s lost N64 racer, Mini Racers
Filed under: Culture, Retro, Driving
A dev cart of Nintendo’s cancelled N64 racer Mini Racers recently surfaced in Marlborough, MA via a Craigslist post. That post has since been removed, but Joystiq has been in touch with the author, who writes:
“There seems to be some speculation as to the legitimacy of [the dev cart in my possession]. As you can see [pictured], it is an official Nintendo dev cart. Some folks commented [see original post] that the contents will last forever, which is more or less true on a standard mass produced cart. As this game was never mass produced this may very well be the only cart with Mini Racers on it. Dev carts are known to be very unstable and only meant to hold roms in flash memory for testing purposes. Frankly, I am surprised that the game lasted as long as it did. Also, you will see a picture drawn on the cart, it is rumored that it was drawn by the Lead Designer of the game.
I still haven’t found anyone local to do the deed. I would be willing to bring the cart to wherever within MA by that person’s terms, so no one needs to worry about a kidnapping. I just don’t want to send it off to some stranger who may never return it. Unless I find someone local, the rom may never find its way off the cart.”
You may contact the owner here.
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