Games Digest

Rockstar North boss hits out at anti-video game critics ahead of GTA IV launch, claims they “fear” progress

Proof that The Times does actually have a sympathetic ear for video gaming, it has published an interview with Leslie Benzies, president of Edinburgh-based Rockstar North. The ‘interview’ is kind of light on actual dialogue between the interviewer and interviewee, which would have made for an interesting read, but instead the writer opted to focus on how good Rockstar is at getting nasty things said about it by ratings boards, politicians and policemen.

Never mind though because Benzies did have a few things to share about how he and the company see the controversies that swirl around nearly every game they produce. Lashing anti-video game critics, he said “There is a big fear factor here. It’s the coming of the railways, it’s Elvis shaking his hips. It’s cars going over 25 miles per hour and making people explode.”  

He also questions why games get different treatment to other media, observing “We wanted to make a horror game [Manhunt] that would scare you in the same way a film would. It doesn’t seem to me to be any worse than a film. If it’s a film or a book, you can do what you want. We seem to be in a different category.”

Speaking of Manhunt; I was particularly disappointed to notice that The Times has managed to once again to perpetuate the myth that the tragic murder of Stefan Pakeerah in 2004 had anything to do with the game. Keith Vaz may desperately want it to be the cause but the FACT, as explained by the police investigating, was that the victim owner the game, NOT the killer.

On the whole though, it feels like Rockstar has moved on to a more mature mindset following recent events. Back during the Manhunt 2 ban, it was out there fighting, seemingly wanting to bring down the BBFC on its own. Now with GTA IV about to release, the developers are revealing more sensitive sides, emphasizing their understanding of the games INTENDED market (i.e. not children).

“We’re very careful about who we market the game to and what is in the game,” explains Benzies.

GTA IV, although still ripe with all the content that caused controversy years ago (cops to shoot, hookers to beat) doesn’t appear to have pushed the obscene violence too much further. This coupled with Rockstar’s maturing attitude could be paving the way for gaming’s renaissance.

The Times couldn’t resist a parting shot though: it wheeled out some scientist who reckons that playing video games damages children’s brains and robs them of their personalities. How do you even argue with that kind of statement?

GTA IV

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Cutting edge console technologies may soon be a thing of the past

Recently we’ve heard a lot of worrying tales that PC games are losing favour with developers and publishers alike, and possibly even gamers themselves. The very future of the platform appears to be under threat. It’s hardly much of a surprise: modern consoles have become so powerful that they are easily comparable to all but the most powerful PC gaming rigs. And thanks to manufacturers heavily subsidising the hardware costs, they are a much cheaper option.

Now there’s some good news for PC gamers, but bad news for console players if recent analysis of the console market is anything to go by. As we know, Nintendo’s Wii is tearing a new hole in the console market. And not only is flying off shelves faster than warm baked goods on a chilly spring morning, it is going against everything that Sony and Microsoft stand for and making money right out of the box. Graphically, it is leagues behind its two main console competitors, but that has made no difference to it.

This in turn could, and probably will, have far reaching consequence for the next round of console wars: analyst Billy Pidgeon, program manager for IDC's Consumer Markets: Gaming program states “I think the results of this cycle will have a strong influence on the next cycle, in that cheaper consoles will be expected.” “Microsoft and Sony will attain successful business on this generation, but catering to the early adopter hardcore gamers with a technology leader strategy will be difficult in 2011.”

Of course, while this evolution may well happen in console space, there’s little to suggest that PC gaming technologies will break from its ongoing downward spiral toward pricing itself out of its own market with ever more incredible-yet-hugely-expensive graphics card technologies.

However, former DirectX creator Alex St. John has been speaking in an interview this week, outlining how PC gaming is set to make a huge comeback.

Integrated Intel graphics chips have been oft cited as a major problem for the PC games market. These incredibly cheap graphics technologies have ensured that PCs can be found almost anywhere, but they remain utterly useless for gaming. That could soon change, as Alex St. John  explains:

“Intel is producing a new generation of chips that have CPU and GPU on the same die which share access to the cache—the L1 cache—coming out in maybe 2009. Those chips should have two interesting capabilities. They should theoretically, in terms of traditional Direct3D performance, be maybe five to ten times faster than the current chips on the market, but they may also have some graphics capabilities that don't exist anywhere on the market because of the change in architecture.”

If this turns out to be correct then essentially the next round of console wars will put each platform on a level playing field. PCs may not be enjoying the same graphical advantage next time round, but coupled with the ever increasing market for digital distribution, will enjoy a much more organised response to the increased pressure from consoles.

Consoles meanwhile seem to be getting closer and closer to turning into full blown PCs themselves, which is further blurring the distinction.

It seems clear that both Sony and Microsoft shot themselves in the feet by overstretching so far in their effort to outdo each other technologically, so the next round of console wars may see a relative slowdown. If this does give PC gaming a chance to catch up again, then the increased choice is only for the better.

However, one factor that does appear to have been underestimated in all these analyses is the role of control options. Nintendo’s success hasn’t just been born from a clever pricing/technology mix. The innovative Wii remote helped considerably. Though the advancement of console technologies may begin to slow next time, the role of control technologies shouldn’t be underestimated either.

Source
ExtremeTech and Next-Gen

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More ignorant people join Mass Effect debate

In case you’ve never heard of Mass Effect, allow Fox News to explain: it’s a role playing video game leaving NOTHING to the imagination, featuring full digital nudity and the ability for the players to engage in graphic sex. It’s designed for adolescent males because, despite the enormous amounts of data to the contrary, no one over the age of 18 actually plays video games – they only buy consoles on the off chance that a younger, more corruptible mind might fall under its baleful influence.

The game is inherently sexist too. It portrays women only as objects of desire, and doesn’t show women as being valued for anything other than their sexuality. Players of the game assume the role of a man, who spends his time deciding how many women he wants to “be” with. It’s Luke Skywalker meet Debbie Does Dallas.

Well. I had NO IDEA. I spend a good thirty hours playing the game and that incredibly brief sexual encounter has left me wondering how on earth I’m supposed to venture outside the house without dry-humping the legs of every passing female. Alien or otherwise. Hats off to Geoff Keighley for trying valiantly to get his point across in the 15 seconds they gave him while talking over the top of him.

Geoff Keighley: “Have you ever played mass effect?”
Cooper Lawrence: *laughs* “No!”

Well, at least someone’s laughing, eh?

Source
Game Trailers

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Sin City game due "early next year"

A Sin City game will be coming "early next year," according to a recent story on MCV. No platforms have yet been confirmed, but given the fact that the title's going to be using Unreal Engine 3, PS3 and Xbox 360 releases are pretty likely.

You can read the full story over at xboxer.tv

Source:
MCV via Eurogamer

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WGA announces nominees for best 'Videogame Writing'

Ever wondered which are the games that feature the best writing? Well wonder no more as the Writers Guild of America has announced its nominees in the ‘Videogame Writing’ category.

Only 5 games make up the full compliment, with the awards to be announced on Saturday, February 9^th.

2 PC only titles (at least PC only as it stands right now) make the cut, with stunningly good looking RTS World in Conflict, and glorious moral obsessed action-RPG The Witcher apparently the best examples of videogame writing for 2007.

As for the consoles, quirky PSP actioner Dead Head Fred makes an appearance, as does The Simpsons Game, and oddly, Crash of the Titans.

Fantastic to see game writing receiving some recognition, but surely there are better examples of writing out there? Half-Life for example? Or how about Mass Effect? Or Call of Duty 4? Or even Bioshock?

Source: WGA

Rubbish games sell – Kane & Lynch sells over a million

It’s always distressing when a stunningly wonderful title fails at retail. You know, when that absolute classic somehow manages to be neglected by the gaming masses, and disappears off the shelves quicker than a magazine featuring the first fully naked shots of Scarlet Johansson. And I don't mean in same great - oh my, we've sold a MILLION copies of this in just over an hour - way.

But it’s equally irritating when a load of tosh manages to still make masses of cash despite its well publicised rubbish-ness. Which means I’m more than a little saddened to hear that the terrible Kane & Lynch: Dead Men has managed to shift over one million copies so far.

Word from SCi seem to hint towards this success pointing towards the potential for this to be the start of a brand new franchise. So we can expect more of this tripe. I place the blame squarely on you daft sods you picked up a copy for making me lose a little more faith in the trends of the great gaming public.

Just think. Instead of that rubbish, you could have bought Call of Duty 4. Or Uncharted. Or Ratchet and Clank. Or Halo 3. Of FIFA 08. Or Guitar Hero 3. Or even a bloody Atari 2600 with a huge bundle of games. Come on people. Show some sense.

Source: Next-Gen

Related posts: Gamespot Editor fired for giving the rubbish Kane & Lynch the score it deserves? Gaming journalism sinks a little lower...

 

FIFA 08 obliterates PES 2008 in sales during 2007

The biggest selling games of 2007 have finally been announced, and there are a number of major victories for the likes of EA, Nintendo, Microsoft, and even THQ.

The biggest victory, however, has to be for football fans everywhere. With the Pro Evolution Soccer series stagnating with this years shocking effort, it’s absolutely fantastic to see that FIFA 08 claims the top selling spot, way ahead of forth placed Pro Evolution Soccer 2008.

Fellow EA title, The Simpsons Game, heads in at number 7, just behind the hefty selling Xbox 360 exclusive Halo 3. Nintendo claim three separate places in the top ten, with the original Brain Training standing tall at number 2, More Brain Training coming in at 5, and Wii Play sneaking in at number 8 thanks to the inclusion of the rare Wii Remote.

 The sublime Call of Duty 4 places well at number 3, with Assassin’s Creed and WWE Smackdown Vs RAW 2008 rounding out the top ten. We’d love to give you some figures, but ELSPA hold the copyright, and we don’t want to get on their wrong side.

 

1. FIFA 08 (EA)
2. Dr Kawashima's Brain Training (Nintendo)
3. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision)
4. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (Konami)
5. More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima (Nintendo)
6. Halo 3 (Microsoft)
7. The Simpsons Game (EA)
8. Wii Play (Nintendo)
9. Assassin's Creed (Ubisoft)
10. WWE Smackdown VS Raw 2008 (THQ)

Source: GamesIndutry

Tales from the other side of the counter – Xmas edition

The traditional holiday rush has reached its peak, and finally folks seem to be more eager to stay at home in the warm, rather than brave the high street to nab that last pair of socks for granddad.

From the other side of the counter – the poor sods working their fingers to the bone for barely any more than minimum wage – things have been a little intriguing, and a whole heap frustrating.

The insane popularity of the two Nintendo consoles rose to yet another peak, with stock levels being back to 0 within a few minutes of arriving in store. Not that most understand that stock is almost impossible to receive, as numerous parents who finally realise that their spoilt brats aren’t going to receive their number one present descend into rudeness, and pathetic shouts to shop staff that they’ve single handedly “ruined Christmas,” for little Johnny. The stupid sods.

The Xbox 360 continued to sell in steady numbers, with the Premium being the top seller due to some wickedly cheap priced bundles lumping in the likes of Halo 3 and *spits* Need For Speed: ProStreet. The ‘Arcade Pack’ remained on the shelves with not a single unit changing hands. As for the Elite console, it’s not too shocking to discover that only a few folks were happy to shell out the extra cash for a bigger hard drive.

Sony have had a good run the closer Christmas came, with sales of the PSP suddenly rivalling the 360 for seemingly no apparent reason. Maybe a case of kids having to plump for their ‘second choice’ with DS’s all sold out? As for the PS3, the rush after the still fairly recent price-cut slowly calmed down and current sales are neck-and-neck with the Premium 360.

Games wise, the usual suspects were the biggest sellers. The various SingStar titles sold by the truckload, though the PS3 iteration remained merely a steady seller. The delightful FIFA 08, and the rubbish Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 also sold in hefty numbers, as did the PS3 Tomb Raider-a-like Uncharted as word spread of its absolute genius. The various Guitar Hero iterations shifted in ridiculous numbers too, particularly at its cheap price point.

The good taste award goes to DS owners who snapped up numerous copies of the sublime Hotel Dusk literally minutes after the stock hitting the shelves. Good on those folks eager for a decent yarn. Bad taste award goes to those DS owners who actually purchased the various ‘Imagine’ titles, featuring the likes of ‘Babies’ and ‘Fashion Designers’. Blimey. Any old crap really will shift at this time of year wont it?

So, the big winners are essentially the retailers who have done astonishing figures the last few weeks. The losers are the shop workers, who have all the idiots attempting to return titles they purchased elsewhere on Boxing Day, still to look forward to. Fantastic.

 

Opinion: Facebook and OpenSocial gaming are changing the face of gaming, but consoles are the future

Over at our big brother-blog, Tech Digest, fellow editor Stuart Dredge writes; “the next title that's a true paradigm shift in gaming, won't be on a console or handheld device - it'll be on a social network.” I thought it only fair to offer some kind of reply to temper his blatant Facebook fanboyism with some of my own console-centric thoughts.

Facebook’s surge to global dominance has been the kind of thing that every would-be web entrepreneur dreams of. Its seemingly overnight success has been by no means impeded by the introduction of the Facebook Platform earlier in the year which opened the floodgates for all kinds of pointless time wasting applications that at least satisfy a Ludologist’s interpretation of gaming. For all the countless amounts of pure garbage, however, there are few shining gems. Tech Digest cites the recent arrival – Tower Bloxx – which made the leap from mobile phones to Facebook bringing with it new social networking features.

As you play Tower Bloxx and build up your score, the pictures of your Facebook friends are displayed on the side of the game window showing their scores and allowing you a more immediate feeling of satisfaction, plus the allure of potential bragging rights, as you pass.

This of course instantly doubles the appeal of the game as it generates a competition, not between you and some slack-jawed thirteen year on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, but someone you actually know and haven’t wanted to throttle within ten seconds of meeting them.

Is this the future– the long sought Game 2.0, the place where social interaction and video gaming finally meet in blissful union – then? Hell no. Facebook’s elephant in the room, particularly when it comes to these games, is the fact there‘s actually no means of generating money or financially rewarding those whose applications do claw their way to the top of the dung heap.

As a result Facebook games will remain as little more than intensely budget pastimes, unable to evolve beyond bedroom programming. Not that there’s anything wrong with bedroom programming, which has itself been responsible for a more than significant number of truly brilliant games, but there is also an undeniable appeal in the bigger budget efforts involving teams of talented people working towards one goal.  While Facebook applications could be a great testing ground for new ideas, without real fiscal incentive or reward, they can’t hope to evolve much further than their current rudimentary status and are destined to sink into insignificance at around the same time as Facebook inevitably will – just as soon as we all start signing up to MybookSpace or Facebebo or whatever.

I’ll concede that Google's recently announced OpenSocial initiative, which is designed to be enjoyed over multiple social networking platforms, has a better chance of success, but as few players will presumably want to pay to play such games or be lumbered with intrusive advertising mechanisms, there remains the same lack of incentive to really push the boundaries of what can be done with the gaming medium.

That’s not to say that the social networking model has nothing to offer console gaming; there is a huge amount to be learned from the overwhelming popularity of games like Scrabulous (currently enjoying over half a million active users each day – as much or more than any big budget alien shooter can ever hope to achieve) and, more importantly, the way it is enjoyed.

So far all three of the current-gen consoles (Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3) have tried different ways to connect players in a social space. But it tends to be in a clunky impersonal way and, in one case, then charges you for the pleasure of it.

The true strength of the console platform is its potential to enhance gaming as an entertainment medium – not just in terms of graphical spectacle, but in narrative and gameplay and, yes, social interaction. While social networking platforms struggle to reward new thinking in game design, the console platforms also struggle to encourage it – a point epitomised by the sheer number of generic shooter titles and endlessly running sequels.

I’m confident though that, sooner or later, the console giants will wake up and smell the coffee, or risk labouring under their finite niches indefinitely, which, as the cost of development continues to rise, will be an increasing handicap. The social networking model provides an answer to that; giving players access to social space that it is contextually relevant to them and their real lives. Facebook, for the most part, encourages you to do the legwork and actually get out and meet people – it then provides a handy means for keeping track and in touch with them afterwards. Consoles don’t have that to anything like the same degree, unless you and all your friends happen to all own the same consoles and games, and any chance of taking console gaming forward will have to approach the problem from a far more open perspective.

The next real paradigm shift in gaming won’t come from a first person shooter, an MMO, a brain exercise or a Facebook application. It will smash down the artificial barriers between all three and take what is best about big budget collaborative efforts, social networking and the fact that a standalone console unit has the potential to be both more powerful and significantly cheaper than any home computer, to form a far greater whole.

Al Warmington is editor of Games Digest and PSPSPS. He spends more time playing PS3 than any half-arsed Facebook game because the last thing he wants to do after a long day slaving over a hot PC is look at another damned PC. TVs are okay though.

For more consumer technology and Web 2.0 news, check out Shiny Media's Tech Digest blog.

Bungie not planning on non-360 games development

Bungie is not planning on working on platforms other than the Xbox 360. At a recent LiveText chat over at Eurogamer, lead writer Frank O' Connor stated that "We have no plans to work on any other platforms beyond 360 at this time."

"Microsoft have been good friends to us" added Production Director Jonty Barnes. "You can see the strength of our relationship in Halo. We're really focused on continuing our collaboration in making the best games we can, and that right now is on 360."

Read the full story over at xboxer

Source:
Eurogamer

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High street retailers eyeing games to save them from digital demise

CD sales are dropping fast thanks to the likes of iTunes. It's only a matter of time before movie sales follow suit and HD discs cost so much you'd need to remortgage your house to actually buy something resembling a collection, so that leaves very little for the humble high street media giant to actually flog. Well there are games of course, although these themselves are becoming increasingly subject to digital sales.

HMV, however, is optimistic that video game sales are it hope in days to come - "Big picture, if you look over the next three years, what we have said is that the CD market will decline by ten per cent per annum, so we need to replace that with higher-growth categories: games, technologies, band merchandise," HMV CEO, Simon Fox told The Daily Telegraph. True to its word, HMV has been significantly upping its gaming strategy, launching a new Gaming Zone for Xbox 360 games in its flagship Edinburgh store and a LAN gaming Gamerbase to its London Trocadero store for PC games.

It's definitely encouraging to think there will be more street retailers ready to take on GAME and Gamestation's EVIL EMPIRE, but the likes of HMV must be at a severe disadvantage by not offering any kind of trade-in option to gamers. This is an incredibly effective method of getting customers through the door, making repeat purchases and signing up to loyalty schemes. Without something similar, other highstreet retailers are going to struggle to retain the same amount of customer loyalty.

Via Game | Life

Bioshock scoops Game of the Year

Spike TV 5th annual video games awards took place over the weekend – we wouldn’t normally pay much attention as it’s really a US only kind of thing, but its always nice to see games getting credit where credit’s due. Bioshock stole the show by pinching the coveted Game of the Year award, best Xbox 360 game and best original score. Ken Levine's spiritual successor to System Shock 2 was always tipped for greatness but it's testimony to the quality of design that the game successfully crossed over to the Xbox 360 console to broader mainstream appeal and without completely nixing the trademark cerebral approach to story and plot. Well maybe it did a little bit, but at least some of the problems the crossover caused have since been fixed.

The very ling list of all winners is on the turn, but there are a few that are a bit of a bone for contention. Halo winning Mountain Dew’s award for Most Addictive Game seems more than a little pathetic given that there was a major sponsorship deal between the beverage manufacturer and the game when it launched. I’d also argue that Call of Duty 4’s multiplayer was a far better contender for the Best Multiplayer Game award than Halo 3 which was basically just Halo 2 tarted up for the Xbox 360. But then if we all agreed with all these awards, they’d be far less interesting anyway.

Big congrats to all the winners. 

GAME OF THE YEAR
BioShock

STUDIO OF THE YEAR
Harmonix

BEST SHOOTER
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision/ Infinity Ward)

BEST RPG
Mass Effect (Microsoft Game Studios/ BioWare)

BEST MILITARY GAME
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision/ Infinity Ward)

BEST INDIVIDUAL SPORTS GAME
skate (Electronic Arts/ EA Black Box)

BEST HANDHELD GAME
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo/ Nintendo)

BEST GRAPHICS
Crysis (Electronic Arts/ Crytek)

BEST GAME BASED ON A MOVIE OR TV SHOW
The Simpsons Game (Electronic Arts/ EA Redwood Shores)

BEST RHYTHM GAME
Rock Band (MTV Games/ Harmonix)

BEST DRIVING GAME
DiRT (Codemasters/ Codemasters)

BEST ACTION GAME
Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo/ Nintendo)

BEST TEAM SPORTS GAME
Madden NFL 08 (Electronic Arts/ EA Tiburon)

BEST SOUNDTRACK
Rock Band (MTV Games/ Harmonix)

BREAKTHROUGH TECHNOLOGY
The Orange Box/ Portal (Valve/ Valve)

BEST XBOX 360 GAME
BioShock

BEST WII GAME
Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo/ Nintendo)

BEST PS3 GAME
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (Sony Computer Entertainment/
Insomniac Games)

BEST PC GAME
The Orange Box (Valve/ Valve)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
BioShock

BEST MULTI-PLAYER GAME
Halo 3 (Microsoft Game Studios/ Bungie Studios)

MOST ADDICTIVE VIDEO GAME FUELED BY DEW
Halo 3 (Microsoft Game Studios/ Bungie Studios)

If the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 were films, what would they be?

With the recent news that movie rentals are coming to Xbox Live in Europe next week, we take a look at each console and try to decide which Blockbuster film best sums up its current state.

Wii- Spy Kids

Rodriguez built up a hardcore fanbase with films like El Mariachi and from Dusk 'til Dawn. Then came Sky Kids. Sure, some of his directorial touches shone through the film, but despite the little jokes included for the adults, there was no question that this was aimed at kids. Despite this, it was a critical and a commercial hit, despite leaving some of the more devoted adult followers of Rodriguez a little disappointed.

PS3- The Matrix Reloaded

The series had started off so well, with its predecessor offering a lot to chew on for even the most casual action or sci-fi movie buff. Hype was built up to fever pitch for the sequel, with promises of improved special effects and more ambitious scope. However, on its release, it was difficult not to be disappointed. In the years between the original and the sequel, hype had built up the second installment to almost unmeetable levels. Nevertheless, there were some genuine problems with the film, with often unlikeable characters and special effects that just didn't seem as convincing as we'd been lead to believe.

Xbox 360-  Casino Royale

Casino Royale was a good watch, but didn't really change the franchise as much as we'd been lead to believe- it simply took what worked and improved on it. Sure, it was unlikely to convert people who'd always hated James Bond movies, but if you were already a fan of the series you probably wouldn't be disappointed. It didn't hurt that it didn't face a lot of competition at the box office, and the well-executed action scenes managed to counter the effects of the barrage of product placement.

Eidos faking Kane & Lynch reviews, scores?

As if there wasn’t enough bad karma surrounding the arrival of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, Eidos has now been caught red handed manipulating review scores and impressions of the game to put it in a better light. Not that that is particularly uncommon those – those little review bites you see adorning box covers should always been taken with a healthy amount of suspicion. Sentences like “This sorry excuse for a game is so bad you should throw rocks at you postman to keep it away from your home” easily transforms in the more palatable “This. Game. Rocks.”

Nonetheless, Eidos seems to be pushing even the unwritten rules about review quotes this time. Kotaku yesterday revealed that, much to its surprise, it had apparently given the game a 5-star rating, along with Game Informer and Game Spy.

Since the story broke, it looks like the dubious ‘is it a real 5-star rating or is it just a clever way of fleshing out the flash site that just so happens to look like a 5-star rating’ graphic has been removed from the official Kane & Lynch website. However, the fact remains that a lot of these ‘quotes’ are taken not from actual reviews, but from earlier previews.

Again, there’s an unwritten rule about previews, which is that you have to look for only the best things about the game because everything else is subject to change as the development progresses. Perhaps in a sort of defence to Eidos, the final game doesn’t actually appeared to have changed much since its preview days – the aiming sucks badly, the cover system is still broken and it looks like a PS2 game. So maybe all those previews can count as opinions of the final product in some form of twisted PR logic.

Whatever the case, Kane & Lynch has been on a real rollercoaster of a ride – going from one of the best hyped launches in game history to submerging beneath a storm of bad press and public outcry in just a few days.

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Gamespot Editor fired for giving the rubbish Kane & Lynch the score it deserves? Gaming journalism sinks a little lower...

Talk of publishers paying magazines/websites for certain review scores are heard with just about every single major gaming review ever published. Claims of editors being flown halfway around the world in exchange for top scores, or promises of long term advertising in exchange for a ‘game of the month’ award are ten a penny.

But, things have suddenly taken a major turn in the last 24 hours. After Jeff Gerstmann scored Eidos’ Kane & Lynch: Dead Men with an average score of 6.0 out of 10, the rumours go that Eidos, who had a major advertisement campaign featuring said dull title running on Gamespot at the time, demanded that either Jeff was fired, or they’d pull their advertisement cash full stop. And surprise surprise, it’s been confirmed that Mr Gerstmann is now no longer an employee of Gamespot.

This is, well, shocking. If publishers can throw their weight around like this with such a huge and popular site, surely the same situation could occur with alarming regularity at every major gaming website/magazine worldwide. And if reviewers can’t be trusted to score games as THEY see it, and not what the publisher demands, how can gamers believe the critics?

Personally, that’s the last time I’ll go seeking out the opinion of Gamespot when contemplating a gaming purchase. And I strongly urge everyone else to do the same. Personally I scored said game a mere 2 out of 5 as I found it to be absolute rubbish. Thankfully at a website where I’m not at fear of getting fired for speaking my mind.

Source: Kotaku

Crank up the graphicality - Unreal Engine 3 to be ported to Wii

Epic's Unreal Engine 3 will be making its way Wii-ward in the near future. In an interview with Kikizo, Mark Rein, Epic's VP confirmed as much, reporting that a currently unknown developer will be tackling the port of the engine used for Gears of War for an upcoming game or two.

Rein ruled out his company doing the work themselves, making clear that their business lies on the cutting edge of high-spec systems such as the PC, 360 and PS3. "I just don't see a big market there to bring this big hulking memory intensive engine over to a much smaller system," he commented, although not denying the chance for others to have a go. Probably because they get a big wodge of cash as licensers.

Most likely possibility for the publisher in question is Ubisoft. They've already used Unreal Engine 2 for Red Steel and have a natural affiliation for Wii hardware. Although don't expect graphical lushness if that game is anything to go by. But If it's not them, at least we can rule out Silicon Knights.

As reported on WiiWii.tv

Rumour: Dead rising on PC?

Rumours originating from whistle blowing Italian distributers suggest that Capcom’s seminal next-gen zombie fest could be making its way on to PC in the near future. Dead Rising was perhaps the game that first visibly pushed the boundaries in the Xbox 360’s capabilities – not just with high resolution graphics, but with its sheer, awe-inspiring number of on screen enemies.

In a manner that was absolutely in no way related to George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, the game took place in a mall infested by the undead. You played Frank West, a photo journalist documenting the nightmarish events over seventy hours, and happily killed time by chasing down psychopaths, rescuing survivors, skateboarding and pulling off kick-ass wrestling moves on the hapless zombies.

Dead Rising on PC is such a great idea that I really hope the rumour proves correct. The rapidly evolving PC technologies mean that PC games have basically outstripped the games consoles already, and yet there is nothing on the PC that even remotely compares to Dead Rising. Until Left 4 Dead comes along that is.

The game also elicited a unique love-it, hate-it response from players, mainly because it was punishingly difficult to find time to cover all the side quests without accidentally missing an important plot mission and thus completely nixing your chance to complete the game properly. I just pray Capcom changes one thing: Otis. Remove him. Or let me permanently silence his constant radioing with a pair of rusty garden sheers.

Source
CVG

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Rock band sues Guitar Hero publisher, claims cover is too good

80s rock band, The Romantics, are reportedly suing Activision, the publisher of the Guitar Hero series over the cover of its track “What I Like About You”, found in Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s. What could possibly be so wrong with the cover that it would warrant legal action? Could the hapless cover band have made such a horrible mess of it that it would put anyone off buying the band’s music?

Worse! They made the cover too good. Such that it is"virtually indistinguishable from the authentic version". Those fiends. How dare they sound ANYTHING LIKE the band they are covering! That defies the point entirely.

The likelihood of this suit succeeding is pretty doubtful, but then I’m no legal expert. But it’s hard to see how The Romantics stand to lose if the cover version is so authentic. And Activision must have paid the record label for the rights to produce a cover. In any case, it’ll be interesting to see what happens. Is there actually anything you can’t sue people for these days?

Source
Billboard

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Fallout 3 perk contest winner announced

Fallout’s perk system add a highly refreshing break from the usual boring array of stamina, intelligence and agility points, and they’re part of the laconic atmosphere. Naturally, Bethesda – the developers now at the reigns of the third Fallout iteration – want to keep them going into the next game. So in celebration of Fallout’s tenth anniversary, Bethesda ran a compo to see who could come up with the best idea for a perk – that winner would then get to see it immortalised in the final copy of the game.

17,000 entrees were sent in and some lucky sod was tasked with the gruelling job of reading through every single one of them. The winner was Marc-Andre Deslongchamps’ perk entitled Grim Reaper's Sprint, which when used means that “everytime you kill an opponent, all your action points are automatically restored.”

It’s an interesting choice because a lot of the original perks also had a negative side to them as well, where as this seems to be a win-win situation for the user. That possibly indicates that Bethesda is tweaking the formula slightly so that there’s no good reason to be all boring and not choose any.

There are a handful of other runners up and random winners. You can check out the full list here. There are a couple that really stood out for me though:

Clumsy Mother: Your mother wasn't exactly the most graceful woman in the compound. So by the time you were walking you were dropped on your head... a LOT. As a result, you may not be the sharpest tool in the shed but your noggin is probably the toughest part of your body. Intelligence - 20 ++ Headshots do no extra damage to you at all.

KleptomaniacYou have the uncontrollable urge to steal from people you talk to. They never notice it, but neither do you! You sometimes end up with their money or items. It's like a disease!

SchizophreniaYou're twisted, seriously. It sometimes happens that somebody else inside you takes control over your mind and body. From time to time, somebody else can talk or act in your place. He gives you his skills and his vices for a short duration. You can suddenly talk science like a doctor and then think like a two year child at the very next second. Quite random and risky way of life. - This Perk allows short time accesses to different levels of dimensions of dialogs sentences and strongly affects the character sheet. Could be based on low intelligence and high luck, or so.

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Assassin’s Creed tops UK game chart clash of the titans – original IPs can be successful too!

This week’s charts are something a little bit special. We’re now officially entering the great Christmas rush with more great games coming out than you can count on all of you fingers and toes. Friday marked the start of probably the biggest competition for chart leadership ever seen in the games industry.

Pinching number one position was PS3 and Xbox 360 title, Assassin’s Creed. It brought with it several years of Ubisoft’s finest hype and a heritage spanning back into the Hitman series. Although it actually suffered at the hands of reviewers, who called it out on the fact that the plot is silly, the gameplay is repetitive and the graphics have a fair share of glitches, it has still managed to become the fastest selling original piece of IP since 2002. It’s a very refreshing change from the usual ‘sequelitis’ we have to endure and interesting proof that review scores don’t always predict chart success.

And to further the drive the point home, the title starved Nintendo Wii had its own serious big hitter in the form of Super Mario Galaxy, which is not only the first proper Mario game on the console, but has also received naught but glowing praises from every publication lucky enough to receive review code. The Italian plumber’s latest adventure only landed him a number five spot, which given the number of Wii’s out there in the wild, doesn’t seem all that impressive.

PC gamers were not left out either – Crysis, the long awaited, not quite sequel to Far Cry, finally showed up, bringing with it an eye watering array of Direct X 10 graphics and generally shouting the message that it is now officially cool to use Vista. Well not that cool as it turns out – Crysis missed the top ten completely and had to settle for 14. However, seeing as the kind of PC necessary to run the game won’t even be invented until 2009, that’s probably an admirable achievement anyway.

Source
GamesIndustry.biz

The Orange Box video review

Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2 and Portal - is this the game of the year?

Don’t call it a comeback: Interplay opening new studio – classic series set to return?

Interplay has seen its share of financial woes over the past few years, culminating its sale of the Fallout brand to Bethesda. Now, CEO Herve Caen, reporting on the publisher’s third quarter earnings, has assured us that the company has passed an “important milestone” in its “difficult turnaround” period.

The upshot is that it is preparing to launch an in-house development studio for a planned Fallout MMO and has hired veteran Fallout designer, Jason Anderson, for it. It is currently unclear whether he will be working directly with the new Fallout game though.

Further good news is that, as part of the publisher’s “two-pronged growth strategy”, classic Interplay franchises like Earthworm Jim, Descent and Freespace could see the light of day once more, either through the new studio or through further farming out the IPs to other developers.

A return of Descent would definitely make my day as some of my earliest and fondest memories of LAN gaming are of playing Descent on my school’s network. And subsequently getting myself a lifetime ban from it. Fascists. Freespace always used to provide a decent alternative to the Wing Commander games of old too. Nothing has been set in stone yet, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed that Interplay will soon be making its way back to its former glory – and if it can resurrect some classic franchises at the same time, all the better.

Source
Gamasutra

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Downloadable Xbox titles will have issues

Microsoft's released a list of issues that the newly announced downloadable Xbox games will have on the 360. Some issues don't sound that severe, as in Halo's case, with "some very mild frame rate drops." Others sounds a little alarming, with Fable players warned to watch for "some random bursts of audio static" among other things. See the full list here.

Read the full story here.

Source:
gamespot

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Halo coming to Xbox Live Arcade - yours for 1200 in gamermoney

The game that started it for Microsoft's console division is coming to Xbox Live Arcade, thanks to a rejigging of the online service that's due on December 4.

That's the day the latest Dashboard update rolls out, and, incredibly, you'll be able to download the original Halo and play it on your 360. Very exciting, unless you've spent the last couple of years playing it with Xbox 360's backwards compatibility feature anyway.

Read all about it over on Xboxer.tv.

Analyst goes for CoD4 over Halo 3 – but is ever so slightly noncommittal

There seems to have been a pretty hefty number of those reports from ‘analysts’ recently stating that game X is bound to beat game Y in the sales race because of blah blah blah…

This time an analyst by the name of Todd Greenwald has stated that because of the high score that the fantastic Call of Duty 4 currently proudly displays on Metacritic.com, combined with the fact it’s released across four platforms means it could outsell Halo 3.

Really, how do these gaming analyst jobs come about? Surely its just common sense that a cracking multiplatform game has more chance of selling a chunky number of copies than a single platform title?

What makes this particular piece of ‘analysis’ even more distressing is the incredible lack of commitment Greenwald offers. He only states that they “anticipate this years version [of Call of Duty 4] could do four million or more [sales].” He wont even stand by his little piece of glaringly obvious guesswork in any kind of committal fashion.

Oh, but at least Call of Duty 4 is blooming fantastic. And even better than Halo 3 in multiplayer. 

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Activision intent on revitalising Bond franchise, but can it ever live up to GoldenEye’s standards?

Bond actor Daniel Craig might have his doubts, but Activision is eager to ensure that future James Bond titles are up to par. Activision acquired the license from EA last year and sees great potential in the suave British secret agent.

Speaking in a recent conference, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick was critical of EA’s treatment of the series, stating "The James Bond licence suffered a lot because it wasn't a focal point of EA’s efforts over the past five years and they have such a broad portfolio of franchises that this one didn't get the attention it deserved."

As we all know, there’s only one James Bond title that has ever lived up to expectations – the N64’s GoldenEye 007. Kotick sensibly decided to pay homage to the classic shooter “Bond is one of the great videogame franchises of all time and that really was a result of GoldenEye.”

Activision has assured us that it is committing serious resources to the new Bond title, namely the developer Treyarch, responsible for Spider-Man 3 (bad start) and Call of Duty 3 (getting better). A second team is working on “another Bond product” – handheld port, anyone?

But with all the best intentions in the world, it is still going to be very hard to live up the mighty GoldenEye. The N64 classic worked not just because it was Bond, but because it was such an accomplished shooter, arriving at a time when decent console shooters were very few and far between. Nowadays, they’re ten a penny and the best of them benefit mostly from the highly original storylines and narrative. By the simple fact of being a movie licensed title destroys any chance of a compelling original narrative because it has to stick the formula already played out in the movie, which the players have undoubtedly already seen.

Source
MCV

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No firm release date for GTA IV until Take2 is good and ready

Take2 Chairman, Strauss Zelnick, has refused to put a firm release date on the highly anticipated fourth iteration of the Grand Theft Auto series. When it was first announced that the original September 2007 date would be missed, Rockstar put a fairly loose date of between February and April next year as a guide. If that were the case, we would probably expecting to see something more set in stone round about now. However, Zelnick doesn't want to make more commitments that Take2 can't keep so we're just going to have to sit tight.

Reading between the lines, it wouldn't be all that surprising if the date got pushed yet further back from that 1st quarter estimate. Being patient can be a drag , but I can't think of any games that have suffered from too much development time (I'd be really interested to hear some suggestions though) and both the publisher and developer are under increased pressure to break the boundaries with this latest GTA, especially in the wake of the fuss created by Manhunt 2. GTA is itself no stranger to conspiracy, but at least those games generally make up for it by being, y'know, good.

Read the full story on PSPSPS.tv

Bond actor loves video games, not fussed on Bond games though

The latest James Bond actor, Daniel Craig, has revealed that he’s addicted to video games. He recently signed a $60m deal with MGM to keep playing the suave hero for a further three movies but comments that he wasn’t keen on taking his role into a game of the movies.

His favourite games? “Ones that have a big fat story line”, he said, citing Halo, which is “good because it’s shooting aliens.” And we all know that if there’s one thing that James Bond hates more than terrorists, Russians, free runners and megalomaniacs, it’s those bloody aliens.

Despite his love for games, Craig says that he had reservations about putting his voice to a Bond game of his own. Presumably then he’s had the unfortunate experience of playing one of the many rubbish Bond movie tie-ins, which became all the more popular after the enormous success of GoldenEye 007 on the N64. Since then, not a single moive tie-in – let alone a Bond one – has even come close to the standard set by the Rare classic.

Craig recalls “When I started signing contracts for Bond I said, ‘I’m not doing the computer game’ and they said, ‘Tough, you are’”. And I guess an eight figure sum can prove a remarkably effective way of changing a person’s mind. He has urged the developers (Activision holds the rights) to make it a decent one. Oh go on then.

Source
Showbiz Spy

Manhunt 2 cleared by ESRB, not Hot Coffee 2 says Patricia Vance

At the end of last week, the ESRB broke its silence and announced  findings from an investigation into the latest Manhunt 2 kafuffke, this time caused by hackers finding a way to unlock some of the games previously censored content. Patricia Vance revealed that the ESRB was satisfied that the publisher had disclosed all the pertinent information to the rating's board as required so there'll be no need to return its AO rating.

Good news for Take Two and Rockstar, but it seems unlikely that the debate will die down just like that. Violence in video games is a popular axe to grind so you can bet more opponents will be joining the fray. In fact, in spite of this reassurance, US retailer Target is strongly rumoured to be pulling Manhunt 2 copies from the shelves. If that's the case it probably won't be the only one.

Read more on PSPSPS.tv

Vast console and game collection on eBay

Over the last few years there have been a few impressive games collections go under the auctioneer’s hammer. Nothing, and I mean nothing quite compares to this one currently selling on eBay.

It contains 1,768 items, reputedly worth $14,639 – but you can choose to buy it now for a meagre $10, 979. To put the scale of this collection into perspective, it is going to cost you over a grand to transport the collection.

Needless to say, there’s almost every home console in there that you can imagine - from the SNK Neo Geo Pocket, right up to the Nintendo Wii – and a huge collection of games including some really rare titles like the Christmas version of NiGHTS Into Dreams on the Dreamcast and a gold cartridge edition of Micromachines on the NES (and probably about a hundred more, but you get the picture). Bidding has started and at the time of writing was only up to $2,225. Check out the full list, which is too long for eBay to handle, here.

Source
Technabob

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Manhunt 2 outcry building, parents and senators weigh in

Now that it transpires that the Manhunt 2 hack, which lets players experience some of the original AO-rated fun content, is real and effective, the sh*t is approaching the proverbial fan at a blinding speed. Senator Leland Yee wants an investigation and the Parents Television Council wants the AO rating back. Yawn. This of course all stems YET AGAIN from the fact that some people can't seem to get it through their skulls that not every single video game is aimed at children. Frankly, the hacking part seems like just a convenient way of muddying the issue so that the video game violence issue can be dragged up once again. I just hope the ESRB sticks to its guns and refuses to allow itself or Take Two to be used as scape-goats for irresponsible parenting.

Read the full story on PSPSPS.

EA loses $195 million - lays off 350 employees

In many gaming circles, EA has a reputation as displaying all the things that are wrong with the games industry. Spewing out horrifically rushed out yearly updates to various franchises, extracting masses of cash from parents eager to please their brattish child for Christmas by purchasing update number 17 to their favourite franchise. And everyone surely remembers the whole unpaid overtime debacle?

But all is not rosy for the huge mega publisher. Recently announced financial results show that the company lost a huge $195 million during the second quarter, with EA’s response to be to lay off a total of 350 employees’s, including the total shut down of the development studios in Chertsey.

350 employee’s? Blimey, that’s a huge number to be moved on this close to Christmas. EA have said that full-time employee’s that will be laid off with receive severance, and outplacement assistance, but its still a real rubbish situation for those 350 who suddenly find themselves sat in their pants watching Jeremy Kyle every weekday morning. Lets hope they all find some semblance of employment sharpish.

Source: GamesIndustry

 

Lewis Hamilton licensed by EA Sports

Racing fans: set your eyes to gooey. Lewis Hamilton, rookie F1 driver who bloody nearly won the championship and the only reason to actually sit through several hours of Sunday afternoon motor racing, has been signed £5m deal with EA Sports for the use of his good name.

We know it'll be for the Xbox and PlayStation platforms, but there's actually no indication that the game will even be a Formula One game... GamesIndustry.biz points out that Sony actually already holds the official FIA license, so we could well be looking at a really horrible F1 knock-off title. Just what you'd expect from EA Sports I suppose, but to be fair, EA has been a lot better behaved of late so I'm going to be optimistic and say this might be the first F1 game to not be totally dull.

Sister-site PSPSPS.tv has its money on Lewis Hamilton Kart Racing game though.

"I'll buy it a high price" - Resident Evil 4 Wii sells a million

It's only a port with tacked on Wii controls and still it's managed to sell over a million copies worldwide on the Wii. But it's also a port of one of the best games of both this and last generation: Resident Evil 4. Capcom were ecstatic to announce that the sequel that epically dusted the cobwebs off a franchise in danger of becoming a shadow of its former itself has been doing great business on Nintendo's latest machine.

Read more over at WiiWii.tv

Legal loophole could make Manhunt 2 legal in UK

An interesting loophole in the 1984 Video Recording's Act means that Manhunt 2 could be distributed and sold in the UK entirely legally. Spotted by lawyer and Register reader, Phill Carnell, it appears that the law doesn't actually require downloadable games to have a classification rating. Manhunt 2 was (in)famously refused classification twice by the BBFC, effectively banning it from sale.

Therefore, in theory Sony could stick a copy of Manhunt 2 up for sale on PSN. It probably won't and the bad blood that would create with the BBFC, the UK government and probably the British public probably would render the idea pointless, but it's nice to know that it would be possible. I'd be more bothered if Manhunt 2 actually looked any good, but it doesn't. And I'd want the Wii version anyway.

Read the full story on PSPSPS.tv

Top Gear landing in Gran Turismo 5; episodes and test track abound

Britain's top automotive program, Top Gear a.k.a the only thing worth switching the TV on for at the weekend, has taken a new step into the world of video gaming. Thank sweet holy Jesus, this is not a Top Gear licensed game - just a good game, with some Top Gear licensing. A deal signed with Gran Turismo's developers, Polyphony Digital, will mean that once Gran Turismo 5 finally comes out - and don't get excited yet, there's probably a good couple of years of prologues, previews and prologue demos and preview HD demo prologue versions still to go - you'll be able to watch 40 of the series' episodes from within in the game via GT TV. Somewhat more excitingly, you'll also be able to tear it up around a virtual Top Gear test track, either in reasonably priced car celebrity style, or pretend to be The Stig and use some of GT5's better automotive line-up.

Read the full story on PSPSPS.tv

It was all Nintendo at the Video Game BAFTAs

Nintendo destroyed the opposition at last night's Video Game BAFTAs, with Wii Sports wiping the floor with the rest of the gaming world. Xbox 360 managed a couple of awards thanks to Bioshock and Crackdown, and PS2's Okami got a well-deserved gong, but that was all. Wii ruled.

Nintendo must be very pleased today, not to mention tired and rather  hungry.

Read all about it over at Xboxer.tv.

Forget the convenience of a Wii hard disk - just buy more SD cards

Perrin Kaplan, US Vice President of Marketing for Nintendo had a few things to say in her interview with MTV's multiplayer blog. Not least of which was that the Wii's lack of memory isn't a problem when you can just keep buying SD cards. Yep, Kaplan poo-poos the thought of a hard disk and implies it's not Nintendo's fault if you can't fit all your games in one convenient place. We understand their commitment to keeping things simple and uncomplicated with just one model of Wii, but those Virtual Console and Wii Ware downloads are soon going to add up, and swapping cards like floppy discs is something we'd like to see phased out sooner rather than later.

In addition to that rather irksome reply, she's also given her thoughts on getting Bungie to work on Wii. Her non-committal answer? They'll need to come up with something interesting. Um...

Read the full story over on WiiWii.tv

Army of Two delayed until 2008

We're going to have to wait a little longer for upcoming co-op shoot 'em up Army of Two, with the news that EA has delayed the title until early next year. Still, given the plethora of other titles that we've got coming, that's no bad thing, argues xboxer.

Read the full story here.

Source:
MCV via pspsps.tv

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Metal Gear Solid producer bigs up Blu-ray

Konami’s Ryan Payton, Producer on Metal Gear Solid 4, is all about Blu-ray. The game just couldn't do without it. It's not just those sexy graphics or the hours of cinematics outlining every nut-job conspiracy theory you can dream up - it's the audio that's really getting the most from the compression-free playground Blu-ray has to offer.

Gloriously uncompressed David Hayter gruffness is taking up gigabytes and gigabytes of space, such that Payton subtly hints that the game might end up using those fancy dual-layer Blu-ray discs. But if games are truly filling single layer Blu-ray discs to capacity already, where does that leave poor old DVD?

Read the full story on PSPSPS.tv

Stop your griefing! Warhawk makers to crack down on unfair players

Warhawk's Dylan Jobe has announced a new group of Warhawk police who will be responsible for keepin' it clean in the PlayStation 3 multiplayer title. This crack force, known as the Arbiters, will appear to just be ordinary players to you and me, but beneath their mild-mannered visage they will in fact be defenders of truth and justice in the game, tasked with a gruelling routine of scanning forums and playing countless games to root out and punish stat-padders and griefers.

Incognito will be releasing a new patch in the next few weeks that will sort a few of the games other niggles. Read the full story on PSPSPS.tv

Spider-Man joins forces against bullying

As part of the launch campaign for Spider-Man: Friend or For, Activision and Bullying UK have teamed up for a have teamed up for a bit of hand mutual promotion and are running a competition of children aged seven and older to give away copies of the game and an Xbox 360.

While it’s hard to see how Spider-Man’s near invulnerability, slightly schizophrenic self-stalking tactics and psychic spider senses are particularly relevant for a kids getting picked on in the playground, the game at least has a good message for children as the friendly neighbourhood superhero opts to team up with his defeated foes to go on to do battle with a more fearsome worldwide evil threat.

With bullying increasingly seen as a major threat to the wellbeing of our youngsters, it is extremely refreshing to see video games being used as a positive influence in attempts to combat a real societal issue. With video gaming often singled out as a potential source of social problems, let’s hope that campaigns of this sort can start to turn this trend around.

Source
Pro-G

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Team Fortress 2 tees land in the Valve Store

TF2 t-shirts have landed in the Valve store and, testimony to the superb art direction of the game, they look rather awesome. At the moment, there are only Heavy, Pyro, Soldier and Spy shirts to choose from, limited to the rather unexciting colour of white, but I’m guessing there’s going to be more colours and classes to choose from in future.

Each tee has a picture of the character and a little catch-phrase on the back. I’m waiting until there’s a medic one; I just hope the catch-phrase reads “I’m coming, I’m coming, stop yelling at me dammit”

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HMV Gaming Zone debuts in Edinburgh

HMV's flagship Edinburgh store opened the doors on its brand spanking new Gaming Zone yesterday. This in-store arcade could be a new turn for games retailing and it allows you to get your hands on full game titles, play online or locally against other players in the shop.

If a LAN café mated with an games arcade and had a bastard console offspring, this would be the end result. The green and white décor is swish, the kit (Samsung HDTVs, racing wheels and Corbeau seats) is really nice and many of the games are networked up - highlights being Halo 3 and PGR4. So is this the future for games retail? Or is it destined to be a short-lived gimmic inhabited only by wayward school kids? The launch looked like it went down pretty well, but we'll have to wait and see how it fares in the upcoming Xmas shopping rush.

Read the full story on Xboxer.

Gathering dust - 67% of owners not using their Wii

Would it surprise you to know that, according to a report by Famitsu publisher, Enterbrain, sixty-seven percent of Wii owners haven't been using their consoles lately? We wouldn't, considering the games drought we've had recently, and that publishers have a tendency to release old-gen PS2 games with some misguided attempt at mapping on Wiimote functions.

Still, we don't think it's such a bad thing. Nintendo's targeting the non-gamer this generation, and for them, the Wii doesn't need to be switched on every day to justify it. The fad might be dying down now, but there's no reason it won't fire up later. The most important thing is it's already penetrated the homes of non-gamers. Now all it needs to do is lie in wait.

Read the full article over on WiiWii.tv

Are you one of those weirdos who listens to the Halo 3 music for fun?

If so, the Halo 3 two CD soundtrack experience is the Christmas gift for you. And if you can't be bothered with all that physical purchasing, a digital download will be available from the publisher's online shop.

The Halo 3 soundtrack CD's out on November 20. Read more details and some quite unfounded criticism of fans of video game music over on Xboxer.tv.

Another previous-generation game to be Wii-ified: Okami confirmed

Sega is digging out its old Dreamcast games to cash in on the Wii's popularity (see the recently announced remakes of Samba De Amigo and Sega Bass Fishing), we've already had Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, and now Capcom is to again plunder its treasure box of golden oldies and produce a Wii version of Okami. Great news in one sense -- we're more than happy to play new versions of these games -- but where will the revivalism end?

Read the full story on WiiWii

Portal Multiplayer possible, maybe

Portal is an incredibly brilliant, trippy and mind altering 3D puzzler-come-adventure game out now on Steam and Xbox 360; if you haven’t played it, I strongly urge you to go get that Orange Box. And with it you’ll get a great shooter and an even greater online game AND you’ll be able to understand where the recent flood of Weighted Companion Cube references on the interwebs are coming from. But what could make Portal even more mind altering, trippy and indeed brilliant? Multiplayer, of course.

Frankly, the idea of several players all running around creating their own portals, springing through them behind other players, and using them to drop their rivals into poisonous goo could only make the game nine times more awesome. Although it might do seriously bad things to your special awareness.

Anyway, making Portal work so smoothly can’t have been an easy task, so to adapt it for multiplayer with so many other more portals being set up around the place could prove damned near impossible. Luckily, some clever chap by the name of Matt Malesky has made a first step towards getting it in a multiplayer game. It’s a long way short of having a real game but hopefully the ever-amazing mod community will be able to sort something out sooner or later. We have every faith.

Check this video for a proof of concept and a walkthru on how Malesky got it working.

Source
Rock Paper Shotgun