1P Start

Yep, I’m a hypocrite. After writing the article a few weeks ago giving five reasons why I’m not playing Grand Theft Auto IV, I’m addicted to it now. The reason why I am playing the game so soon after writing the article came about from a perfect storm of getting a PS3 as a wedding gift and then having a roommate who had gotten GTA IV for free for the PS3. There was no reason left for me not to at least try it out.

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The Halcyon Company is looking to make a couple of games based on works by author Philip K. Dick as well as making a few movies based on his work. They haven’t said specifically if they are making a Blade Runner game, perhaps Philip K. Dick’s most famous work, but they’d almost be fools not to. Although, I’ll admit it. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the book that Blade Runner is based on, kind of sucks. I know I just committed a sin saying that, but it really wasn’t what I was hoping for when I picked it up. Any game based on it worth it’s salt would have to borrow heavily from the movie or else I’m not interested.

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In an effort to keep the buzz going about Guitar Hero World Tour, Neversoft invited some world famous drummers to “test” the prototype drum kit that will be included in the new game. The video has such noted drummers as Travis Barker from Blink 182, Travis Smith from Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Stewart Copeland from The Police.

I’m foolishly hoping there will be an easy way to use these drums on Rock Band or something. There’s no way I can afford or store two fake sets of drums and a bunch of plastic guitars. While the drums look seriously awesome, how many Rock Band owners will be able to convert over after having dropped over a hundred bucks on the game. Hell, how many people are now waiting for Guitar Hero World Tour instead of buying Rock Band like they might have previously?
Hopefully Harmonix has some sort of strategy to combat Guitar Hero’s drums as well, because if I were to choose between the two, the Guitar Hero drums just look cooler with the added advantage of having them sound louder or softer depending on how much force you apply while drumming. That’s some seriously cool stuff.

There’s a news item going around that a couple of the actors from GTA IV, particularly Michael Hollick, the actor that plays the lead character Niko Bellic, are complaining about their pay from their work on the game. Hollick says he spent 15 months working on the game for 100,000 bucks, but is not getting anything out of the millions upon millions the game is making, like a lead actor in a successful film would.

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Music and video games have been awkward bed buddies in the past, with artists not often being happy to have their songs license for use in titles in case they are somehow cheapened. However, this all changed last generation with games such as Grand Theft Auto using official tracks from established artists to add credibility and realism to the game.

Then along came Guitar Hero and Singstar and the friendship fully blossomed in to a symbiotic relationship where both parties began to benefit greatly. In an article on another site, I argued the case for Guitar Hero having helped the music industry more than the RIAA and other such organisations ever could, as the game actively got me in to a few bands that I had never even heard of before.

Rock Band was then shown to have massively increased digital music sales after fans downloaded songs by the featured artists after falling in love with the tracks from the game. And now that trend has been shown to be continuing with rock band Motley Crue having reportedly sold more copies of their new single through Rock Band than they have done so far on iTunes.

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Over on Filefront I saw an interesting article highlighting the fact that the marketers around the new Penny Arcade game (Penny Arcade: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness) have been using quotes that are a little less than complimentary in their ads:

The quotes don’t come from a gushing review, they are from a Penny Arcade hater by the name ddf on Wired’s blogs. In case you haven’t guess, ddf is the type of person that has absolutely no life and has the overwhelming need to tear the creative works of others down, because he (who are we kidding, this can’t be a she) can’t create anything himself.

Listen, I’m not a Penny Arcade fanboy. I like a lot of their strips and I bought the first two volumes of their comic strip collections, but there’s a lot of times they fall flat. I also find their commentary posts on their site both hard to read and smarmy. I can understand why people might not like them, but if you spend any amount of time actively trying to crap on them it’s a little freaking sad.

For the record this guy has a blog and yes he is a jackass on it. I’m not going to link to it in order to give him any kind of boost in traffic as a reward. If you’re curious though, here’s a tidbit of the kind of wit and substance that can be found there: “I hereby come out of my soap opera coma to coin the term “BioSuck” in regards to new lame FPS game Bioshock. Anyone using it from now on owes me royalties.” Uh yeah, because it’s so clever to put in “uck” after an “s” to mock something. When reading anything by this guy it’s nearly impossible to believe that he’s not some sort of plant created by the Penny Arcade crew to create some extra buzz for the game.

After being gone for awhile (I’m sure you noticed) I have returned. I went to my Midwestern roots and got hitched to a hot chick. Why should you care? Well I don’t expect you to, but it plays a significant part of the following tale. If you’ve never gotten married, then you won’t know how boring most wedding gifts are. It’s really hard to get excited over opening a blender or the fifteenth wooden spoon. That’s why when my friend Brian said, “You’re going to like this” as he handed me the gift from him and several other of my friends I was more than a little doubtful. Upon opening the present, I realized he was right. It was a PS3. Now, this story isn’t about how lucky I am to have awesome friends. There is a point to it.

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After missing a week (sorry folks) your regular Rock Band DLC update is here! Last week saw a few new songs added along with nine tracks that were available in Europe. This week, if you like the Cars then you’ll be in for a treat, because there’s a whole Cars album available for purchase. If you don’t, well I guess it’s another week of not purchasing any new Rock Band songs. The Cars self titled album contains nine songs. The album can be purchased for $14.99 (1200 Microsoft pretend points), or $1.99 (160 Microsoft pretend points) per track.

They are:

* “Good Times Roll”

* “My Best Friend’s Girl”

* “Just What I Needed”

* “I’m in Touch with Your World”

* “Don’t Cha Stop”

* “You’re All I’ve Got Tonight”

* “Bye Bye Love”

* “Moving in Stereo”

* “All Mixed Up”

Thoughts and videos after the break!

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The latest in rumerish news is that Bioshock is coming to the PS3. Apparently in the next issue of the UK based PlayStation mag, PSM3 they have the official details on Bioshock’s arrivial on Sony’s console. According to the gaming website CVG, the magazine will feature both an extensive preview of the game and a bunch of screenshots.

360 fanboys will undoubtedly be upset if this is true, but it’s a good news day for those with a PS3 hankering to play one of the best shooters ever without having to fork over cash for Microsoft’s beast. And if this is true, hopefully there will be a bit of extra content in the works. There’s nothing worse than having a game come out that’s a year old on another format with nothing extra for the delay.

Zoids are cool. Why? Nothing beats giant mecha in the shape of animals and dinosaurs. Zoids were never as popular here in the states as they are in Japan, but apparently Atlus USA thinks there’s enough interest in bringing this Zoids based strategy game stateside.

This is pretty welcome news. I love strategy games and I’m very fond of Zoids. My roommate is so nuts for Zoids that I swore he was going to figure out how to get an import version in order to play it, since the Japanese trailer showed that all the menus were in English.

If the trailer interests you and you have no clue what Zoids are, check out the official Zoids Assault website. It has some handy information on the story of Zoids and some of the different Zoid mecha.

Zoids Assault is expected to street on 08/26/08 for the Xbox 360.

The Metal Gear Solid games have always been shall we say a bit long-winded, with long cut scenes and FMV sequences which go on for ages with no interaction from the player, but it seems that Metal gear Solid 4 is ramping that up even more.

CVG is reporting that after playing through the review copy of the game they managed to lay their hands on, they found that some cut scenes lasted as long as 90 minutes. This outdoes the previous instalments by quite a margin, with the longest reported before this being a 45-minute long scene during Metal Gear Solid 2.

We all expected there to be long cut scenes included in the game as the series has a history of them and Hideo Kojima, the game’s creator is renowned for them, but is one lasting 90 minutes really necessary? I personally baulk at going to see a movie at the cinema if it goes far beyond that as I know I’d start to get bored and have a sore butt by the end of it, so I really don’t want my video games to start going that way as well.

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At the beginning of last month, rumours emerged of Microsoft developing a Wii Remote style controller for the Xbox 360 in an attempt to grab a piece of Nintendo’s obviously huge market. The company has already started this strategy by releasing the Xbox Arcade pack, a cheap and cheerful package to appeal to casual gamers everywhere.

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of months, here’s a short rehash of the rumours. MTV News (not who I’d normally look to for gaming news, or any other news for that matter) reported that an inside Microsoft source has revealed the plans for an almost exact replica of the Wii Remote. It looks almost identical, although is thought to have a microphone included for future games similar to Singstar.

At the time, Microsoft refused to comment on the speculation, as they do with almost every rumour, but Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has chosen to speak out.

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Wii Fit is due to be released in the USA this week, first in the Nintendo World Store on May 19th before being available everywhere on May 21st. The game, which is already available in Europe and Asia ships with a balance board peripheral which allows gamers to do exercises, and yoga, and even weight themselves using the software.

The game, or lifestyle device as some are more accurately calling it has already divided opinion. Hardcore gamers more in to their first person shooters and RPGs have written it off as not even a game, and the Wii itself as not a true player in this generation’s console war. While others thinks the Wii and games such as Wii Fit are bringing more people in to gaming, and opening up the hobby to a more diverse range of people.

Wal-Mart were even marketing the game as the perfect Mother’s Day gift by offering $10 gift card to anyone who pre-ordered the game by May 10th. A Teacher in Canada even tested the game out as a possible alternative to more traditional forms of exercise, with surprising results.

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How do you like to play Halo 3 on the Xbox 360? With friends? With lots of cold beers and snacks? How about with some prostitutes? The latter may seem to be a bit obtuse, but that is exactly how a 13 year old kid from Texas and his friends decided to play the game.

Ralph Hardy ordered an extra credit card in his father’s name, and then went on a $30,000 spending spree with a number of his friends. The credit card company sent out the card after the kid managed to answer a series of security questions correctly.

Hardy was caught after buying an Xbox 360, a load of games, and then booking in to a hotel room with his mates to play the games. After ordering snack food such as Dr Pepper, Fritos and Oreos, the boys asked the hotel management “where they could score some chicks and were willing to pay”.

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With the release of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull nearing, Indiana Jones mania is at its highest. Many fans of the series (me) are going crazy for anything Indiana Jones related. Therefore, for this Game Ads from the Days of Yore we take a look at a promotional ad that was made from the Indiana Jones Pinball game made way back in 1993.

Sit back and enjoy, it’s a nearly ten minute video.

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